


Healing

by DottyDot



Series: How It Could Happen [5]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon Universe, Dark Dany, F/M, Post S8, Romance, Sad start ends well, jonsa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2019-10-15 12:45:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 44,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17528981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DottyDot/pseuds/DottyDot
Summary: He was a dragon, and he left her as they do, on wings. A smile, a gust of wind, the receding smell of fire.





	1. Chapter 1

After the war, for one moment, when her siblings and cousin had all survived, she thought they could finally find peace. She thought they were safe. But, Jon had promised, and he was now a dragon, as their new queen was fond of saying; there would be no peace for him. There would be no happiness for her. He had kissed Bran and Arya's foreheads, but when he came to her, he took her hands, squeezed them, his face full of that tenderness he had always shown her. He was a dragon, and he left her as they do, on wings. A smile, a gust of wind, the receding smell of fire.

She could have cried, she wanted to, but when she thought of going to her room and weeping every one of her aches and fears into her pillow, she had an image of herself as a girl, who wept, who always wept, and she told herself she would never be that girl again. She was the Lady of Winterfell, she would be strong like her Lady mother.

There was grain that needed distribution, sick that needed tending, orphans who needed placement, new Lords to be recognized and placed in their holds, there was much to be done, and Sansa did it all with a ferocity that only comes from not wanting to have a moment to stop. Stopping would mean thinking and then thinking would lead to feeling. No, she could not afford that. Repairs were needed around Winterfell, so Sansa supervised rebuilding what they had in the past with her eyes determinedly focused on the future.

\---

They took King's Landing. Daenerys could not be persuaded to take it in any way other than fire. The city burned; its people burned as well.

Sansa knew what that would do to Jon. She didn't need a raven to tell her that, but then a raven came.

Jon had fallen.

For a moment she felt she had fallen into that icy river again, she could hear the hounds baying, men on horseback shouting, and then Theon was rubbing her back. _No, no, Theon had died in the War of the Dawn. It's a girl. Arya._ Arya was holding her, speaking, saying something. "He lives, he lives, he lives." But Sansa was falling from the walls and the snow was so deep and she was so cold and the hounds were coming.

She woke in her bed, Arya's words in her head, "he lives, for now." She was in Arya's room in an instant, but there was no need for discussion. Arya had packed for them both. They would ride to White Harbor and sail immediately. "He's going to survive, Sansa" Arya offered at some point, but Sansa said nothing. Evil awaits Starks who go South, but then, Jon had always told her he wasn't a Stark.

\---

When sailing into the harbor, Sansa did not look at the city. Whatever was recognizable held only pain for her, and what had been burned was worse. But as they wound their way up to the Red Keep, she could not help but see. It was fitting that the dragon made a home in tumbled, blackened stones, roamed soot soaked streets. The city was painted in fear, even when the people had suffered under Joffrey, the sound of life had filled the city, but now, there were no screams over dead loved ones, no rioting over their starving children. The sound before was the hope that there could be change, but what could sway a dragon? Not reason, not hope. The city silenced itself and embraced its death, well and truly conquered.

Daenerys sat where the Iron Throne once stood. It had been melted into a misshapen form, but the blackened bolder of a throne suited her better than any regal chair. Daenerys had been distraught when Rheagal and Jon fell from the sky. The dragon died that day, and her hopes of ruling with Jon had as well. Now she had only Drogon. Jon had been unresponsive after his fall, breathing, but mangled and broken, and Qyburn said it was only a matter of time. When Daenerys looked at him she saw Drogo, a body, not the man, an impersonation of a life that was gone. Still, Jon had not died, and unbeknownst to her, Tyrion had sent a raven North.

And now, here before her stood the Wardeness of the North, her head held as regally as if dragon's might meant nothing to her. As if her hem was not stained in the blackness of the burned.

"He will never survive the journey back to Winterfell" Daenerys said, displeased with the request. "You may see the body, but--" and she added the last almost kindly, "there is no use trying to take him from here."

Sansa Stark's icy eyes burned colder, "I want to save him, your grace."

Daenerys saw Drogo before her eyes. She hadn't stopped seeing him since the first, and only, time she saw Jon after the fall. She hadn't been able to visit again, not when he lay there, reminding her. "He's as good as dead already, I was merely being courteous to inform you, not making an offer for you to--"

"He's a Northman. Whether he lives or dies, he belongs in the North."

"I will not--"

"Your grace--" Sansa had begged for a life before a king, she would beg for a broken body before a queen. She sank to her knees, her heavy skirt brushing against the stone floor, falling into a circle of darkness around her, her hands firmly clasped together in her lap. "If he is to die, let me bury him in the crypts of Winterfell."

Daenerys felt a strange urge to pity the girl, but that other voice was so loud, it was hard to hear. Yet, she was affected by the sight of the Stark girl losing the absolute control she exerted over herself, the cracks appearing in her composure. Daenerys wondered if the North had some hope of gaining some status by asserting their claim over her heir. "I am to marry." She told Sansa, thinking she may not have know. "I will have children. He will no longer be heir to the throne."

"I thank the gods, your grace" Sansa replied quietly.

Whether that was humble acceptance or ignorant insult, Daenerys could not tell. She tapped her fingers against her steel seat. "It must be a powerful thing, this love you have for your cousin, to bring you here, to bring you to your knees."

Sansa's face, already pale seemed to lose all color, her skin momentarily so white, Daenerys thought there could be no red blood, only ice beneath her skin.

"My Queen, I am loyal to you. I serve at your pleasure. If it pleases you, give me the body." Sansa's eyes flicked up to Daenerys' face with a momentarily flash of unsheathed bitterness. "He is useless to you now."

_His life is not a life_ Daenerys thought, and then she remembered how she had stopped Jon from breathing. _No, that was Drogo, I haven't killed Jon yet._ She shook her head, frightened by the thought. _Drogo was dead, I didn't kill him. I released him. I would never kill Jon._ But then that part of her, the Dragon, whispered _He is as good as dead._ Sometimes that voice frightened her. She nodded to the Northern girl. _Let the nightmares be hers._

Sansa quickly rose, determined to escape before the Dragon changed her mind, before it was too late. Jon needed the clean air of the North, he needed the Walls of Winterfell. He needed to leave this city that smelled of fear and decay. As soon as she left the throne room, Arya stepped in place beside her, seething, "You had to beg that foreign-"

"As I did for another Stark." Sansa interrupted.

"Is he still a Stark then? Even after--"

"He is to me."

\---

Tyrion sent Qyburn away as soon as he saw the Stark girls. There were no greetings beyond a bow and curtsy between him and Sansa, the other sister did not acknowledge him. He had not permitted Qyburn to try any strange cures on Jon, but he had not intervened beyond that. What did he know of medicines and broken bodies? Yet Sansa immediately felt up and down Jon's arms and legs, checking for the locations of broken bones, looking at Tyrion when Jon made no sound beyond small grunts or groans. "He has not been responsive since the fall, and due to the severity of his injuries he's been given large doses of milk of the poppy." Sansa began to pull the bandages from Jon's face, "my lady, perhaps you should not--" Sansa silenced him with a look and examined the injured face. "One learns things in war" she said, calmly assessing what she found. Tyrion turned away, nearly missing how Sansa leaned forward and whispered into the muddle of dark hair, blood, and linen, "The North is calling, Jon. You are coming home."

Tyrion saw them to the docks, the sisters expressionless as their men followed with their cousin. To see Sansa in King's Landing again brought many memories of the time she had been there before, and he felt overwhelming shame and regret. Every time their lives touched he seemed to only be there to tell her of another family member's death. He felt he had taken Jon away from her, that he had caused Jon to lose his life. He regretted that life more than all the others his Queen's victory had cost.

He was afraid of the dark Stark girl, she was too quick, too alert, too aware of every royal guard for him to feel at ease in her presence. He had no jests. He had done what he was able, very little, for Jon and was relinquishing what was left of him as quickly as he could. All said, he was nearly as sickened with his own actions as Sansa was. "My Lady" he began as Sansa moved to embark, "If there is ever anything--"

"I thank you, Lord Tyrion."

One small part of the sky just above the water was nearly the color of Sansa's hair, the sun slowly burning itself away to make room for blackness. It was too beautiful a sight for the occasion, for the Lady of Winterfell to stand before him, fury and sorrow frozen into a perfect face, he ached, and wished he had some comfort to offer. "I admire you greatly, my Lady."

"I believe you said that about my mother once."

"Yes, I did. She also wanted me dead."

"Lord Tyrion, for all that your family and your Queen have done to my family, I have only ever received kindness from you. I do not wish you dead. I wish you success in your endeavor."

Tyrion kissed her hand, even in King's Landing her hand was cold, and yet he thought he burned his lips when they touched her skin. Sansa disappeared into the ship's belly while the disturbing Stark girl stood upon the deck with the confidence of a sailor.

The man who would rebuild a better world stood on the ashes of the old as the Starks sailed North.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa was right, waiting had saved the North, they had not been touched in the Queen's War, but dragons must find something to burn.

 

 

_Before_

 

Arya did not understand Sansa. Even though she had declared Jon a fool when she'd gotten the raven announcing he had given the North to Daenerys, even though she'd looked as if she'd been slapped, Sansa had taken one deep breath, run her hand across her leather belt as if to push her reaction just a little deeper inside of her, and refused to offer any further criticism of Jon or his actions. She then settled down at her desk.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm making a list of what we will need if we are to house our new Queen, her retinue, her armies, and her dragons."

"You're making a _list_? Jon had no right--"

"Jon is our King, he did what he thought best. I am Lady of Winterfell. I will do what I must."

"You think he's a hero? That he's saved the North by giving it to a foreign conquerer?"

"If he--" Sansa sat back in her chair, her full attention on her sister. "It must have been necessary."

"You trust him?"

"You don't?"

"I think he's a man."

Sansa made no response to that. She returned to her lists, to her preparation, and when Daenerys Targaryen rode into Winterfell, she greeted her with a smile.

Arya knew instantly that the Targaryen was no savior of the North. If you like the taste of blood the thirst never leaves your eyes. She saw it every night in the mirror, she saw it in the Queen's face. Sansa was courteous, deferential, but you can't live in King's Landing for long and not recognize lust for power, the slight drooping of the eyes when drunk on claiming even more. Arya turned her eyes on Sansa. _Yes, she saw it._

"She has a good heart" Jon said, after explaining what his situation had been on Dragonstone. He tried to offer hope, but he knew as well. Of course Sansa told him that she understood. She wanted Jon back alive whatever the cost. When she was a prisoner she had flattered and lied and married her way to safety, she wouldn't fault Jon. Arya would have rather died than do what Sansa had done. She looked at her brother, and wondered that a man, a King, could do no better than a girl, had in fact, done much worse.

"She warned me" Jon had told her. "Sansa told me not to go. I did because we'll die without help, but at what cost have I secured it?"

_Arya saw the flames, heard the screams of the slaughtered, the Direwolf flags were burning. Grey Wind's head, bounced above a corpse as men mocked the fallen king. She saw Robb's body tied to his horse, his murderers chanting the success of their betrayal with his title, "the King in the North, here comes the King in the North." The Hound was holding her and they were riding away, to safety, but she could still hear it. "The King in the North, the King in the North!"_

That was the cost of the North's desire for freedom, Arya had seen the price her family had paid for it, and no sooner was it within reach again, then Jon gave that freedom away to a girl who would burn what did not bow. He was sickened by the decision, she could see that, but she also saw his hand on the Targaeryen's arm, how the foreign Queen smiled at him. _Jon is more than just a man, but he is still a man_ she thought.

She said nothing, made no reproaches, did not express her disgust, Sansa would not permit it. "Jon is Jon" Sansa said. "He's doing it to protect us." Arya didn't know if she should marvel at Sansa's ability to trust or be frustrated at her naïveté. "But what he's doing just for dragons. Surely--"

Sansa stoped her with a look. "Sometimes we do thinks we don't want to do because they are necessary."

"Either he's in love or our brother is whoring--"

"Arya, all of us have done things we are not proud of, but no one else may shame us for them. No one else understands."

Arya could not deny that. None of them knew, and to talk of it, to explain what had happened, what she herself had done, she did not know if was possible. And then there was no question of pressing and learning more. Bran and Sam had told Jon their news, and there was nothing to do except reassure Jon of their love. "You're still a Stark. You're our family."

To Sansa though, Arya had learned to speak plainly. "I'll kill her. Jon can take the throne."

"We can't. We have 100,000 soldiers of hers encamped around us and two dragons above us. We can't do anything of the kind. At least--" Arya almost didn't hear the last words Sansa whispered, but in the end, it was the only thing that stayed her hand. "--not yet."

Enough of the world had died and burned at the hand of killers, they wouldn't be free, but they might all live. She would listen to Sansa, see if her method was any better. If it wasn't, Sansa would let her do what she must.

Jon, true to his Stark upbringing, was honest as far as he was able. Daenerys was thrilled to find another Targaeryen, one who immediately eschewed all claims, one she loved, one who would serve her. When Arya saw Jon kneel before the Queen to appease her, to prevent damage to their alliance from the discovery of his parentage, she thought that this was a game she would never be brought to play.

"My Queen" he had said, "you must take the throne." His Queen had thrilled at his words, as he knew she would. "We will take it together" she said, as if granting a favor.

The King in the North was forced to bow before a foreign invader, that was the price, but it bought him men and dragon fire. Jon rode Rheagal, and together, Dothraki, Unsullied, Wildling, and Northmen, they won the war against the dead.

No sooner did the Night King fall then Daenerys looked to Cersei and again to war. There was no question in her mind that Jon would lead her forces, he could not object, even though Arya saw his weariness, and the disgust that rose to his face and then was quickly buried. Arya thought of Jon going South to appease the Queen, the dangers he would face there, and her fingers moved toward her blade. They rested on it, cradling it, comforting herself that she could end it all if she chose. One cut, and the Dragon Queen wouldn't be a problem anymore, but she thought of dragon fire, of the refugees in Winterfell, of the Queen's armies and what they would do to the North if she slid her blade across that regal throat. She released her dagger, her fingers coming down to her side, and Sansa nodded, grateful.

"I'll come back" Jon had told Arya. "What's one more war? We've been fighting ever since we left home. I'll get her that cursed throne, and then you and I will go on adventures. I'll take you beyond the wall."

"She wants you."

"I'm her nephew."

"The rightful heir. She'll have you or you'll never come home."

He looked at her with the conviction of a man with only one ambition. "I am going to get every Dothraki and Unsullied down South where they'll stay with her and her damned dragons. After this war, she won't have the resources to take the North by force if it comes to it. Whether we win or we lose, the North will be safe. She'll get the throne, and then my fighting is finished."

"Aren't you a man, Jon? Don't you want a kingdom and a queen?"

Jon buckled Longclaw to his waist, not looking at her. "I am coming home."  
  
Strangely, Sansa and Jon shared one mind on the matter, without conferring, they each said what the other had. "Protect the North." They were not at all like each other, but they functioned in tandem, Sansa sometimes reacted to what he said with an eye roll or pursed lips, but then proceeded as if she agreed with Jon completely. _She's a better actress than mother_ Arya thought, _but then, for most of her life she's had to be_.

Arya was surprised at how quickly she had come to respect Sansa. Theirs was never an easy relationship. They were no more alike than when they were girls, but where men worried about their own honor, Sansa worried about those who had none. Killing Littlefinger proved Sansa was willing to do what others weren't, she recognized him for what he was when their mother never had, she killed him when their father hadn't, and Arya admired her for it.

Exacting punishment was a language Arya spoke. Justice, vengeance, whatever Sansa wanted to call it, that was a goal they shared, an ambition she understood. Sansa was patient, planting her ideas and tending them in other's minds until her desire was shouted by lips other than her own, and when she acted, they believed it was due to their demands. This was a Sansa she would heed.

She trusted Sansa's methods more than she trusted anything else. So, Arya had one less face, Daernarys lived and conquered her kingdom. Sansa was right, waiting had saved the North, they had not been touched in the Queen's War, but dragons must find something to burn.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon lived, barely, but he lived.

 

_Present_

 

Jon was her brother and cousin, loved as one and then the other, twice claimed by Starks desperate to protect him, but he was still a man. _A man does not understand a woman's rage._

Arya watched the blackness of King's Landing's charred walls and toppled buildings melt into the darkness of the sky. The smell was still strong, the fingers of death reaching out to make one final grasp for them before they escaped.

"Not today" Arya said to the silent waters. " _Not today_."

Once they were safely out of the harbor, and no ships and no dragons followed, the scent of the sea replaced the stench of the city, moonlight was reflected on the water, the shouts of sailors replaced the silence of the dead.

Arya went down to their shared cabin to find Sansa sitting next to the bed, her hand on Jon's chest, feeling for his heartbeat, a faint but regular drum beneath her fingers. She was speaking of home. "Sam is traveling to Winterfell. If anyone can save you, he will."

What Qyburn planned to do with Jon they did not know, but he had placed bandages over deep wounds, neglecting to stitch any save the deepest gash running down Jon's leg. Those stitches they had no choice but to leave, as ugly as they were. Arya helped clean Jon's body, gasping when they uncovered his face. Sansa began to cut off dead skin, and Arya, the brave warrior that she was, gladly escaped the room to fetch wine and water.

When she returned Sansa was carefully knitting together flesh as if that was what she had practiced every day under the supervision of her Septa. Sansa was still pale, but she spoke with a soothing voice and her fingers never faltered. Arya felt her own needle at her hip, and thought of how derisive she had always been of Sansa's needle. As she looked at Jon she thought how easy it was to cut, and watching Sansa she thought it was much harder to repair.

As Sansa stitched, she told Jon what had been done in Winterfell during his absence, how they were rebuilding, how the grain was being redistributed. He made pained sounds as she worked, but her fingers did not stop until she was finished, and then she stroked his hair so tenderly Arya ached. She wanted to leave again, to find something to stab and slash and destroy, but she was drawn into the room too, finding something deeper than her urge to run holding her there.

"I should have listened to you" Sansa said. "I should have let you kill her when we had the chance." Sansa did not look up from her work, continuing to pull together skin and piece Jon back together as calmly as she did everything, but Arya thought for a moment that Sansa's calmness was no less dangerous than her own fury.

Arya said nothing, just watched as Sansa replaced the bandages, carefully rewrapping Jon's face, one side of which was torn again and again. _He'll rival the hound when it heals_ , Arya thought. Nearly his whole head was wrapped by the time Sansa was through. His left arm was tied to his chest so he wouldn't hurt it further, his legs bound together to hold the injured one still.

During the stitching Arya had stepped away from the bed and into the shadows near the door, the urge to leave and the desire to stay continually fighting each other. She was surprised when Sansa knelt by the bed, her hands compulsively smoothing her skirts, paying no attention to the fresh stains she added to the dark grey of her dress, mingling Jon's blood with the soot she had collected while kneeling before the Queen. Her voice was low, but Arya still heard.

"Jon, I know what it is to want to die because such pain feels impossible to endure. But you haven't had a chance to spar with Arya, and you haven't visited the heart tree with Bran yet. You haven't told us of living beyond the wall, of Uncle Benjen, of mammoths. You haven't told us of how you met Sam, how he came to be your brother. You have to tell your stories to his child." Sansa stopped to breathe, and then took Jon's hands in hers asking for his future as if she knew it was a gift it would grieve him to give. "I want to hear the other things father told you that he never told me. I want to argue with you and agree with you and tell you to stop protecting me again, only to have you do it, always, no matter what. I want to hear your laugh again." Her voice sunk even lower, coming out of her in a painful plea. "I know you aren't afraid of death anymore, but don't leave again. Live just a little longer with me. Please, just _live_."

Sansa didn't lose her composure when begging for a life, she didn't weep like a woman or curse like a man, she acted as one with power over the future, as if her words had consequence, as if they weren't just remnants of what their lives could have been, desperate wishes of a girl who no longer existed. Sansa's words were what Arya would have said had anything of the past remained in her, but maybe some of it did. Maybe it wasn't all gone. Arya found herself believing, not in legends or prophecies or gods, she found herself believing in Sansa. She came and knelt by the bed with her sister, unsure of what to do other than wait, so they waited. Arya slipped her small, strong hand into Sansa's delicate fingers, still soiled with Jon's blood, and they waited. They waited to see if he awoke, which he didn't. Waited to see if he would live, which he did.

Jon lived, barely, but he lived.

\--

Arya could not bear to stay below deck for any stretch of time. She was restless, had always been. Everything that had happened to her while she was "gone," as Sansa so gently put it, and then the war, had made it far worse. But, she never stayed away long, coming back to check on Sansa who found many pointless tasks to complete in caring for Jon, many things to clean and organize in the cabin, many things to sit and silently ponder. Sansa checked on one wound or the other, then she prayed. She found so much mending Arya was sure she was tearing holes into their clothing herself, and she prayed. She seemed to endlessly create ways to be useful as if afraid she wasn't, and then she would pray again. Arya was not surprised by any of this, so Sansa had been ever since they were reunited, but what did surprise her was the softness of Sansa's touch, how everything repellent about the damaged body evoked only compassion from her.

She thought of what the Queen had said about Sansa's love for Jon, she thought of how Sansa spoke of Jon while he was gone at Dragonstone, how she hadn't spoken of him once after he had left to fight in the South. Arya had been angry, angry at the Queen, angry with Jon, and she thought of how Sansa had vehemently disagreed with Jon, but quickly resigned herself to his decision. Jon had underestimated the danger of the dragon, but perhaps Arya had not noticed a woman's love. She had seen respect, trust, some affection between the two, it was strange, now to see Sansa's devotion.

\--

One afternoon, days into the journey, Arya came down to the cabin to find Sansa sitting on the edge of the bed next to Jon, singing. She stopped, embarrassed or uncertain of Arya's approval, but Arya offered a tentative smile. "You should. Mother always sang to me when I was sick."

Sansa continued her song, and then she sang another. Her voice had so long been used solely for orders and politics, Arya had almost forgotten how sweet it could be. They were songs of mercy and love, belief poured into ancient words, prayers lifted by melodies that took Arya to a time before she knew death.

Arya had no sweet words or songs, she had silence and secrets, but at the sound of her sister's voice she was not burdened by her secrets, the weight of her silence was lightened, and that afternoon she stayed below deck, her restlessness stilled by Sansa's voice which summoned calmness as it it were hers to command, illuminating their cabin with what Arya could only describe as hope. Breathing became easier, the cabin didn't seem so confining, Arya felt a curious peace descend in the room, and she succumbed to her childish desire. She curled up at the foot of the bed and wandered between memories and dreams for hours, a soft voice soothing her as she hadn't been touched for many years.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her girlish dreams had turned to nightmares, her nightmares had become her life, and she thought the suffering was unending.
> 
> But all things end, in time.

 

Jon's direwolf lived up to his name, present only in intangible ways, not visible, except in swaying branches and footprints. He was never present, only recently gone, and as the wheelhouse carried them to Winterfell, Sansa wondered if the motion and falling snow concealed the blurred figure of the beast. She couldn't catch a glimpse of him, but she knew he was somewhere in the woods, racing them home.

Keeping him in the North was only right, no matter how it hurt Jon to part with him. Sansa could not lock away a wild thing, so she had let him roam free, but as soon as they disembarked at White Harbor she knew Ghost would come. The North was vast, but it would only be a matter of time before Ghost came to Jon.

Traveling in the from White Harbor through snow and untended roads made for a jarring ride, and by the time they reached Winterfell, Sansa was sure irreparable damage had been done to her patient. But the stone walls were promising protection, the snow was falling on their heads like a blessing, everything good in their lives was here, welcoming them home.

Jon had told them he would return, a conquerer on dragon back; Sansa thought he would never return at all. Yet, here he was, come home, not on wings, on a litter, not victorious, defeated. But he was home. She was not happy, she could not be happy when he looked more like a corpse than the man she knew, when he had yet to awake, but she was glad. Her gladness melted down her back, trickling over her until she felt the need to shake herself and rub it off her skin. She didn't need to be happy, he was home, and if there was any hope of his survival she knew it could be found there.

Bran presented himself, Sansa took his hand, and he looked at her, dark eyes inscrutable. She wondered if he had known, if he had seen what would happen, if he could have...but no, there would be no grievances between them, making demands of him was beyond her now, not after what he had done. It hurt her still, his inability to care, but he had traveled through minds and time and seen and done what she could not comprehend. They lived because almost all of him that was her brother had died, because others had died to preserve what was left of him. The same could be said for them all. She squeezed his hand, something flickered in his eyes, something almost like recognition and affection, so she kissed the top of his head, as she only allowed herself to do when that little piece of Bran peaked through.

Sam had prepared a room for Jon, and had bottles, equipment, and books he poured over. Gilly collected ingredients and made her own treatments, telling Sansa as she pounded herbs with pestle and mortar how Jon and Sam had saved her, saved her baby. Sansa respected and liked Sam, but the man's shy, bumbling manner had done much to conceal his bravery from her. Gilly considered him her hero, and Gilly was not a woman easily tricked into worshipping a man, let alone trusting one.

No sooner had they arrived home then Arya disappeared. She returned weeks later with a potion, instructions, and no explanation. Sam pondered and looked quizzical, but ultimately chose to do as he was told. Even when Arya was trying to help she could be intimidating. Reviving the life in Jon became the common thread connecting them all. Sansa had her people, Gilly had her son, Sam had many more sick to care for than he could possibly tend to, but Jon was the heart of their lives for those first few weeks when all was uncertainty.

And as much as everyone cared, it was Sansa who sat beside Jon day after day. It was Sansa who held his hand and sang and read to his motionless form. When Ghost appeared as Sansa knew he would, it was Sansa who led him to the room and encouraged him to jump on the bed, curling his great body around Jon until the man was nearly hidden by white fur. It was Sansa who took to cleaning and brushing that fur until it was soft and met even her standards, and it was Sansa who sat for hours, carefully dripping broth into Jon's mouth, shooing away Ghost's tongue when he was too curious about dinner. It was Sansa, sitting with Jon every day and every night, as if her presence was what would keep Jon alive. It was always Sansa, wiping sweat from his body, adding furs or taking them away as needed, not because no one else could do it, because she wanted to.

Arya's return meant some reasonable limitations were imposed on Sansa's constant attendance to Jon. "You must eat" she reproved her sister, "You must sleep." For when Sansa wasn't with Jon she had been managing the North, incapable of shirking duty even when it would have been excused. So Sansa was expelled from the room to sleep, to listen to the Lords' concerns and petitioners, to speak with the steward of supplies and plans for the future.

Sam shook his head over Jon's unresponsiveness, noted his moans of pain as a positive sign, but insisted they begin to give him less of the opiates. He warned Sansa of the symptoms, the agony and confusion Jon would be in as they decreased the dosage, but he was firm. It must be done. Every day that they gave less of the drug Jon moved that much more and expressed his discomfort more audibly, just with noises, never words, but the suffering they conveyed, tore at the girls relentlessly. Instead of the weak groans he had consistently uttered, now he began to cry and moan loudly, flailing in anguish which ripped more screams from his throat as he aggravated his injuries. Sam was pleased, telling them it was all a positive sign, that Jon would certainly live, but they must continue to pull him from the poppy induced dreams, the pain was indicating it was working; he was not lost. Finally, Sam ordered Sansa from the room.

"I can stay, Sam. Let me help."

Soft spoken Sam stuttered in the face of her willfulness, but the commotion brought Arya to the room. She looked from her writhing cousin, to concerned Sam, and then to her stubborn sister. "You aren't staying in here Sansa."

"I have been here the whole time. You can't--"

Arya yanked Sansa's arm, pulling her off balance then unceremoniously pushed her out the door. "Arya, what are you--"

"You're shaking, Sansa."

"I'm fine, I--"

"Sansa, you're crying."

Sansa put her hands to her face and found tears, and then she realized she was shaking, and then she began weeping in earnest, and Arya was holding her again, and Sansa wanted to be strong, but being strong had become such lonely work. She was home and with family and friends, but she was so alone.

_Jon was riding Rheagal, burning hundreds, thousands of wights as they surrounded Winterfell._ Instead of wet tears falling on her cheeks she felt the quick burn and then cooling of ashes. _Father was taking her hand, comforting her at the joust when she was worried. Tyrion was stopping the Knight who was beating her. The Hound was killing the men who were trying to rape her._ She was crying, and the words coming to her mouth tasted of blood. _Arya was cutting Baelish's throat. Jon was beating Ramsay to death. Lady Brienne was killing the men who tried to recapture her._ She was gasping, couldn't breath. _Joffrey was choking at his wedding and Ser Dontos was leading her away and Cersei was screaming._ Her girlish dreams had turned to nightmares, her nightmares had become her life, and she thought the suffering was unending.

But all things end, in time.

_The gates were flung open and she was in Jon's arms, for the first time in years seeing family, and she was holding him and he was holding her._ They were the only ones, for that moment, and yes, ever since. They were incomplete without the other, alone unless together. Defeat or victory, theirs for each other, never theirs alone. He had been so very nearly gone forever that she had accepted it. But now he would live, and how could she bear such joy? How could she live, having accepted the worst and been given the unobtainable instead? In some ways he was surely broken irreparably, but Jon was Jon, and he had promised to come home, he had kept his promise, and he would live.

"He's going to live" offered Arya, as if she thought Sansa did not understand. But such happy declarations only made more tears fall. Such goodness, such unexpected happiness would break her. The evilness life had given her kept bringing her to the abyss and then pulling her back only to throw her towards it again. But this, this was the reward for it all. He was marked for death, had already died once, and yet he lived. She would not breath under the burden of such happiness. She could not stop weeping under the brilliance of this beauty. She allowed Arya to put her to bed, sobbing all the while.

"You kept hoping, and now he's going to live. It will be ugly, but he's going to live."

Sansa's face was buried in her pillow, but she heard Arya's words, muffled though they were, and then Arya stroked her hair as she sobbed out fragments of thoughts and words that Arya did not bother to ask her to explain, suspecting she would never understand. The shaking subsided, the sobbing quieted, and Arya kept her voice low and calm as she repeatedly smoothed the red strands down Sansa's back until she calmed, "I liked it when you used to do this when I had nightmares."

"You always told me to leave you alone." Sansa's voice was stuffy, her head ached, and the tears that had slowed still found their way down her cheeks.

Arya smiled. "I know. I was a brat. I can't sing, but I'll stay until you sleep. Now hush."

Sansa burrowed deeper into her furs, Arya still stroking her hair. _She was hugging Bran. Talking to Arya in the crypts. Jon was kissing her on the forehead. Jon was giving her the North. Jon was wearing that peculiar smile before he left for Dragonstone. Jon was laughing with her on the battlements in spite of everything that had happened and was going to happen, he looked at her and his eyes brightened and they laughed together._ Her happiness would break her heart. Jon was alive. He was going to live.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And then, the snow began to fall. Large flakes drifted down onto her outstretched hand, landing on her gloves and melting, sticking in her horse's black mane in small clusters. She knew. Jon was awake, she was sure.

 

Sam continued to wean Jon off milk of the poppy, and as he did, Jon began to come to himself, slowly becoming aware of his surroundings. His head was still bound, his eyes covered as well as most of his face, but one day his head rolled to the side, in Arya's direction.

She took his hand, "You are home" she said. "You are safe."

Tears moistened his linen bandages as her words registered, as he understood where he was and who was with him, as he remembered what had happened.

"I know" she said, "I know."

Arya hadn't cried when Sansa lost control of herself upon the news that Jon would live. Stoic Sansa, unmoved by anything, crying into her pillow as if all was lost made Arya for the first time consider that Sansa perhaps had felt _everything_ , and felt it too deeply to say. No, Arya had not wept then. But now, the sight of a warrior made helpless, arms that used to hold her too weak to lift off the bed, the silent tears of relief to be home, those same tears a sign of fear for what was to become of him, that moved Arya to shed her own.

_She was a girl again in Winterfell's courtyard, he was laughing at Bran for missing his target while her arrow had been well placed. He was saying goodbye before they left home, before everything fell apart. She was holding needle, a part of him, a part of home, and she didn't throw it into the water. She was not no one. She had always been Arya, no matter how far away she had gone, how many pieces of a person she became._

And now they were back, home, all the family she had left, and while he was mangled and she was standing, she wasn't sure who was more shattered. Her tears were for him, for her, for them all.

They removed some of the bandages, the ones lower on his face, hoping he might speak. The cloth around his eyes remained, the damage there still too severe. Sam told him of his injuries, telling him not to try to get up or remove any other wrappings. He explained that the pain would only get worse, that there would be even more pain as his body relinquished his dependency on the opiate. Jon did not acknowledge what was said, his face was still turned in her direction, his hand still clasped in hers, Arya uncertain what he understood or heard. There wasn't any comfort for her to offer, any helpful thing to do, nothing for anyone to do. Jon must endure the suffering now as well as he was able, and allow himself to heal.

Arya thought of when her stomach had been knifed repeatedly, how she still felt pangs from time to time. She thought of Jon dying from knife wounds to his chest, and wondered why it was that they both kept living. It was to be here, to finally get home, wasn't it?

"We must be equal parts cursed and blessed. So many times we should have died and somehow didn't. You outdid me there though, dying and coming back. Falling off a dragon after that must have seemed mundane." A small huff and a groan escaped him, he _was_ hearing them. Her relief was followed by guilt for hurting him, yet she was pleased that after everywhere they had been, and everything they had been through, they were not so changed that they had lost that.

She could still make Jon laugh.

\---

Sansa could have sent someone else to Winter Town to deliver the food, blankets, and a few remedies concocted by Sam, but she felt her obligations keenly, and wanted the people to know she cared for them, not just tell them so. Arya always criticized her guards, so occasionally she accompanied Sansa, but today Sansa came alone save her two guards. Arya said they still did not equal one decent protector. Sansa nodded, rode out the gate. Agreeing with her sister made no difference, Brienne was dead, there was no replacing her.

Sansa did not like to leave Winterfell, now that her family was back together she had ridiculous fears of walking out the gate and never finding her way back home again. _Nightmares_ , she told herself. She put her fears aside, and took the hands offered her. They were the wrinkled hands of old women, husbands dead following her father into battle, their sons dead following Robb, their grandsons and granddaughters dead following Jon. _Theirs was the nightmare_ , and she shuddered thinking of living to see such an age only for their memories to be so full of death.

There were children, crippled men, young women carrying babes, all awed to receive gifts from her hands, all with the same lost expression on their faces. There was little meat to be shared, but she brought small amounts of grain and bread to be distributed. The blankets she turned over to the families who were housing orphans, listening to their needs as if there were sufficient funds left to meet them, offering assurances that she would do what she could, adding a request for funds to her mental list to relay to Tyrion.

Every raven sent to King's Landing felt like reaching back into a past she wished to forget, and every raven received felt like the past was catching hold and would someday overtake her. But, Tyrion was the only one keeping the Queen Daenerys in check, and she therefore must keep in contact with him for her people's sake. She needed him to keep his Queen happy, and she needed him to run the kingdom in a way Daenerys was either incapable of or disinterested in doing.

The difficulty Tyrion faced in trying to keep the Dragon Queen in check, holding her last dragon at bay, without his Queen losing her temper and turning on him was a hell Sansa thought he had earned. He had brought the dragons and their mother, let him live in fear of burning like everyone else in Westoros. She had a sad fondness for the man, and felt for him what she felt for many, that their fates were perhaps crueler than they deserved. Yet, she could not pity him.

She smiled at a young girl, who reminded her of a little Arya with unkept dark hair and wild brown eyes. Kneeling, she offered the girl a small loaf of bread from Winterfell's kitchen. "This is all I have for you today, but when supplies arrive, I shall bring you sweet cakes." The small child smiled, took the offering, and hid herself behind her mother's skirts. _She's still young enough to have someone to cling to._

She continued to several more homes, until she had nothing left to offer beyond her pleasantries and attempts at comfort, and seemingly, these were as pleasing as anything else. House Stark was not the only Northern family to have suffered during the wars, but Sansa feared the small folk had born more than any of them. So many dead, so many injured, all for an ugly chair and a burned out castle. Cersei and Daenerys had fought over a title, determined that others would suffer until they had the power it brought. All Sansa's title had brought her was the burden of her people's suffering. _I will make them love me_ she had thought as a girl, and now as a woman, she knew what a weight their trust was to carry.

She traveled on horseback today, finding it quicker and more comfortable in such weather, the now empty cart rumbling behind, one guard by her side, another before her. As they rode toward home she began to feel increasingly uneasy, her horse grew skittish as if picking up on her change of mood. She had the irrational thought that she knew Jon was awake. She told herself she couldn't possibly know it, she soothed her mount with a gentle pat on his neck, as calming to herself as it was to him. And then, the snow began to fall. Large flakes drifted down onto her outstretched hand, landing on her gloves and melting, sticking in her horse's black mane in small clusters. She knew. Jon was awake, she was sure. She dug in her heels, urging her mount on to Winterfell, startling her guards into chasing after her.

\---

Jon hadn't said a word to them, simply dozed off after a time. Arya went to stand by the window, she wouldn't leave him until Sansa returned, but she needed to not feel so contained. The cold seeped through the cracks in small gusts, a firm reminder that she was in the North. The stones were warm on her hand, the air cool on her cheeks, the harshness of each a comfort.

Sansa flung open the door with urgency. Her gloves were still on, her boots tracking mud on the floor, her hair wild from the wind, her cloak heavily sprinkled in snow, for once in her life, she had neglected to behave as a lady. Arya thought it was as if Sansa knew, she couldn't have, and yet, she didn't look to either Arya or Sam, didn't say a word, but moved toward the bed as if summoned there. Nothing but the groan of the door, cold air, and her footsteps announced her presence, no one exclaimed or called out, but Jon, suddenly awake, held out his hand and in a voice, unused for so long it was almost more painful to hear than his cries, spoke a name: " _Sansa_."

She was by his side then, his hand in hers, and while Jon did not speak again that day, the room hummed with his word as if it were a song that could not be silenced. _Sansa, Sansa, Sansa_ seemed to fill the room with life, everything wavered as if on the cusp of movement, and everything was still as if freshly settled. In that room, in that moment, Arya was sure that whatever breath of life had been given Sansa at birth, some small puff of divinity had fallen into her too.

Arya knew only the god of death, her childhood beliefs not consciously abandoned, but forgotten nevertheless. She had thought those that couldn't kill were weak, but ever since going to King's Landing, no, before that, watching her sister in Winterfell during and after the war, Arya had begun to think there were other things that require strength too.

Killing your enemy was her chosen way of conquering death, her way of defying the gods, and while quiet, Sansa's defiance of the gods was no less determined than Arya's. It was not hard to kill, how many killers had she known? Anyone could kill, but how rare it is to give life.

She had killed a man with Jon's simple instruction to use the pointy end of the sword, but how do you heal someone? How do you help something grow? Snuffing a life into nothingness was a simple motion, a slash with a knife, a stroke of the sword. How do you discover life when it is nearly gone? How do you coax it back into existence as it is fading away?

Strength is muscle, power a weapon, neither of which can restore what was taken. Sansa's delicate fingers discovered life when little was left, summoned it from death's thrall with nothing but her voice. Her weapons did not kill men, they shielded them from death. Her touch was love, her voice was hope, and Arya's own heart felt so feeble in comparison.

Arya had thought Sansa luxuriated in the niceties of her position as Lady of Winterfell, that she delighted in a birth order that made her the blood of Winterfell. But it wasn't that, it had nothing to do with that. Sansa was the blood of Winterfell because she would find the living Winterfell and beat the remaining embers into flame. She would remind the North of Spring. She had brought life back to Jon. Arya believed it with everything in her being.

Arya watched Sansa stroke Jon's hair, her sister's hand holding his to her chest, as if her pounding heart would beat the lifeblood back into his. "It's snowing, Jon. There are snowdrifts we could barely get through." She plucked the snowflakes from her cape and pressed them to his lips where they melted under his breath. "Can you taste it? It's the last snow of Winter. The thaw is coming." Sansa's head came to the bed next to Jon's heavily bandaged one, her face so close her breath mingled with his. "Spring is nearly here." Jon's response was the faintest of increased pressure on her hand, his fingers tangled with hers as if Sansa alone would pull him through.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She clung to his chest, in spite of his wounds, and if hurt to have her there, but he forced his unwilling arms to move, placing them around her because holding her did more than anything to numb his pain.

 

Pain that made the darkness darker filled his head with screams.

_The Brothers of the Nights Watch are screaming, being killed by Wildlings._

It's over, I'm not at the Wall.

_Wildlings are screaming, being killed by wights._

We escaped Hardhome.

_The Unsullied, Dothraki, and Northmen are screaming, being killed by wights._

We saved Winterfell, we saved the North.

_The people of King's Landing are screaming, they're burning._

I'm falling.

_Rheagal is shrieking._

I'm falling.

_I'm screaming._

Hands were reaching for him.

_Daenerys_.

"You're safe"

_Qyburn_.

"Jon."

_Tyrion_.

"I'm here."

_Sansa_.

Her hands were on his and he was not falling. She was holding him, she was there. His world was endless night. The pain consumed him. Sometimes he became silent in his misery, other times he wept, sometimes he was screaming again, drowning out the voices.

He heard Arya yelling at Sam "He can't bear it, Sam. Give him more. Don't make him suffer." And Sam's hesitant response and then Sansa's calm voice. "Arya, it's always going to be painful to do without, but the sooner he's not taking it the better."

He could hear them all, coming and going, and sometimes he did say words or respond with grunts to what they said, but there was such pain coming from all over his body, and such sounds filling his head. He felt like he was still falling and he couldn't see anything to assure him otherwise.

Jon's world was darkness, sometimes he thought he was dead again, but he heard Sam's voice. "Don't go giving up now. We've just got you back."

Jon choked on a laugh, his body responding with agonizing pain. His arms and legs his ribs and his unseeing eyes which shed tears. "Black. Everything...blackness."

\--

Like the transition between boyhood and manhood, one thing becomes another with small changes that together redefine what is. He felt the change slowly and then quickly, emerging from confusion, fear, and uncertainty to full awareness.

He was no longer living in a world formed by pain, he could feel his body and knew what ached, it was not his entire being. He was no longer falling, he could feel his body cushioned in furs, recognized the feel of his bed, recognized his home. He was not dying, this was living, as much as it hurt, this was life.

He was moving more, tossing and turning in his nightmares. _Fighting to pull himself from the mud beneath the feet of his men. Struggling to swim to the surface from the lake beyond the Wall. Trying to stop himself from falling from Rheagal's back._ They were always touching him, reminding him he was home. Sam, Arya, Sansa. Over and over, in every dream, through every convulsion of pain, a hand would reach out and pull him home.

Hours, days, nights, passed-- _finally_ , finally the pain was bearable, there, but bearable. His arm ached, his legs were unbound, causing him considerable pain. He was coming to himself, he could feel it, and it was horrible, but better to feel it than not feel anything at all.

He ran his fingers across his face, most of the bandages had been removed and he could feel where the skin was pulled and puckered, he touched the thin strip over his eyes. He knew without lifting it.

"I'm blind" he said to the empty room.

A voice called from the darkness, "Jon."

_Sansa_.

The room wasn't empty

She came to him from wherever she had been standing. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." She clung to his chest, in spite of his wounds, and if hurt to have her there, but he forced his unwilling arms to move, placing them around her because holding her did more than anything to numb his pain.

\---

Living was not an easy fate. No sooner had Jon adjusted to his pain then Sam determined to exercise his legs and arms, when he did they sent the girls from the room. Even in the great hall, sometimes even in the courtyard, Arya could hear the agony wrung from Jon during these sessions, but Jon seemed determined to live again, as much as he was able.

Time is the great healer, and Sam an insistent maester. With the help of both, Jon was able to sit up, to move his legs and arms freely. His intense suffering transitioned to pain, faded into aches.

For all his determination and seemingly good spirits, he did not leave his room. Of course, he did not need to. Sansa came to his room every morning to break fast with him before she was called away to her duties. Arya came and went frequently, to check on him, never staying for long, always in and out throughout the day. Sam was of course constantly walking in and squawking over something. Either Jon was exerting himself too much or too little. Jon had not taken enough of Sam's latest remedy or he had taken it all in one fell swoop when it was meant to be taken slowly. Jon didn't curse much, but he was not always the most cooperative of patients.

On occasion, Bran was pushed into the room to speak with Jon, often he fell into a trance with a vision. Sometimes he would stay in the room in the evenings and if they could, Arya and Sansa both came as well, so that they might eat together or simply sit together. Jon in his bed propped up against cushions, Bran in his wheeled chair, Sansa seated near the fire, Arya predictably unpredictable sometimes jumping on the foot of Jon's bed when she was in a particularly good mood, or lying on the furs before the fire when she was tired, or standing in a cold corner of the room when she felt unfit for company.

Staying in the room allowed Jon to become so familiar with the sounds of his world he knew what was happening without being told. He learned his family's footsteps, how they opened the door. When Arya came he knew if it was to yell out where she was going and leave again or if it was to come and visit with him. He learned to tell by her voice if Sansa was happy or if it was forced cheerfulness that made her laugh. Her silence might mean she was pondering some matter or that she was lost in daydreams, and he learned to tell the difference between the two.

Ghost, who had been banished to the corner during Jon's thrashing about, often slept beside the bed now, where Jon could reach out his hand and stroke him, but when the girls came to his room, Ghost happily wandered over to greet them. If Arya sat on the foot of Jon's bed, Ghost would climb up to be snuggled with. Or he might curl up at Sansa's feet until she put aside her work to scratch him.

It was difficult to have conversations, so many subjects attempted and dropped, sentences begun only to be abruptly cut off, interruptions when Bran was too callous or Arya too gruesome or Jon too morbid. Old familiarity was strived for, new closeness developed, preconceptions challenged, adjustments made. It was strange, strange to be different and the same, constantly being reminded of what _was_ , and yet learning now how to _be_.

Arya talked of the faceless men, of her training. "I was blind once" she announced one night, and it was only surprising how little any of them were surprised. Nothing any of them claimed was too incredible to be accepted. Unbelievable was no longer in their diction, not when they sat by the fire with a boy who could see the past, a man who had risen from the dead, a girl who wore other people's faces.

In the evenings, as they sat together, Jon pulled out of his mind every bit of wonder he had experienced beyond the wall during his first excursion. He told them of the giants, of mammoths, of the Wildlings. He talked of the snow, the mountains, how even breathing was painful because of the unimaginable cold. He sometimes worried that Bran would interrupt with more details than he cared to give, but Bran was so often lost in his own world that it never happened. Bran sometimes told them of visions of people and events they had only heard of from Master Luwin and old nan. And Jon knew without being able to see how Sansa's cheeks flushed, how her lips parted in excitement to hear of heroes of old.

Sansa described Margaery's beauty and cunning, spoke affectionately of Shae and her protectiveness. She quoted Olenna in a scandalized voice, and remembered Robb's antics from their childhood. She murmured softly of Rickon. She never spoke of Ramsay, but she pulled from her life whatever bits of happiness she could. It did not escape Jon's notice that she did not have many anecdotes of her own to share, how very few happy things she could find to say about her time since leaving Winterfell. He knew what it meant, that there had been so little that wasn't torment in her life she could barely find it. He also noticed that anyone she spoke of with the least bit of affection was dead.

\---

Somehow, the Starks reworked themselves to fit together, to be a family again, one that included, in some instances revolved around, their half brother turned cousin.

In spite of it all, Jon was as ever Jon. He felt undeserving, humbled, grateful, and perhaps it was that affection, that belonging, that feeling of finally being home, not just in the place he spent his childhood, but with those who knew and understood him, perhaps it was that that made his blindness bearable.

Occasionally his perfect calmness at learning his fate made Jon wonder, maybe he had injured his head in some lasting way. Surely a man such as him could not be happy to be trapped in darkness, living in a room, tended to by others? But he was content, rarely even tempted to brood. The wars were over, he was home, and more of his family had survived than he had ever hoped. He could hardly ask for more than that.

His leg was healing quickly, his arm as well, he was thankful for that, but perhaps it was his recovery that allowed him to find not just contentment in spite of his blindness, but a comfort in it. A blind man cannot wield a sword, and for all his heroic deeds, for all his childhood dreams of being a knight, the thought that he would never be forced to kill again, the thought he would never be called to war again, it brought peace.

_Ygritte's tears as her arrows pierced him. Her words as she died in his arms. Olly's face, thinking he'd saved Jon. Olly's eyes when he stabbed him "for the watch." His cold body after Jon cut the rope._

Killing only meant more killing, and Jon was tired of killing, tired of fighting. He thought the Great War was the worst of it, killing and rekilling what lived and lived again. It was a cruel mockery of his hatred of fighting that even the dead would not stay dead, and he was forced to dance with death again and again. But the burning was worse. He knew when Daenerys burned King's Landing there would be no peace, life would be endless battles, endless death, until he was taken into the darkness again.

He thought he was, he thought he had been taken by that never ending night, that he had breathed his last. Yet, he had lived, and in this dark world he was finding new life. He was a young man still, but he would never take another life. To have the future held out to him, that burden removed, that was a possibility he had never imagined, a joy he had not expected.

Perhaps it was that which made him smile and laugh more than his cousins anticipated, more than he ever expected, or perhaps it was the ever present warmth of a woman, loving him in so many quiet ways he could not name them all.

They did not argue now, Sansa spoke softly, gently to him and him to her. Her hands always adjusting this on his bed or that on his person. A fur was too heavy or a bandage too loose. It was often that she was tending to him and yet he constantly found himself longing for her touch because once and one more were never enough.

Perhaps he knew what it was, that it was all of it and more. While Sansa's care and attentions were overwhelming, the reality of his own love, so long silent and hidden, was no longer shameful, kept bubbling to the surface. It was impossible, he knew, he must not speak of it, but he was able to be with her, and that was more than he had expected. That was a well of happiness he drew from every morning when she came to him to ask how he had slept, every afternoon when she sighed and complained about the Lords, disputes, and finances, every evening when she was listening and laughing and crying over their stories. Sansa in any form was enough to temper everything else.

\--

Jon's contentment disconcerted Sam immensely. Sometimes to the point that he asked where his brooding bastard of a friend had gone, only to then be promptly shown he needn't have worried, he was still there after all. This message was sometimes delivered with a feigned punch or swing of the leg. As much as Sam teased, he did genuinely wonder if Jon at peace or merely pretending.

Sam understood finding solace in family. He had Gilly and Little Sam, he knew how love could rectify all manner of wrongs. He knew how Jon loved his cousins, and thought that maybe it was enough. But then, he also saw how Jon reacted when Sansa was in the room. He heard the lightness in Jon's voice, witnessed his features relax, noticed how Jon reacted to her touch.

Sam understood all that, he felt the same way around Gilly. But, he had always been a happier man that Jon. Now Jon was smiling and laughing, even making jokes. Sam shook his head and asked if Jon had been sampling the poppy wine without his knowledge, but Jon just laughed at his friend, gripped his hands in support, and worked on walking without stumbling or falling over.

Sam was sure of Jon's feelings, but could not determine what Sansa's were, so he told himself not to meddle, that all would be well in time, and every day he believed what he told himself a little more, because every day Jon's grip was firmer, his face less pale, his steps a little steadier.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything was fragile, ice over a warming pond, waiting for the water to wear away from beneath, for the sun to beat down from above.

 

The South was burnt until there was little left to die, but here, under the snow and ice, life was awakening. Sansa could feel it. Fish running in the rivers, seedlings reaching through the soil, birds crying out from their nests, life was breaking through the white crust of winter, emerging from absolute stillness with the sounds of the living.

Now that Jon was so much improved, she was both more at ease and more unnerved. She could not stay by his bedside at all times, she was not as needed there as she was elsewhere, but if she wasn't there, she was anxious until she could be. When she was in his room, she fussed over him in her own quiet, decisive way.

She knew Arya watched her, her behavior familiar and unfamiliar. A constant sweet memory of their mother and how she cared for them when they were sick tainted with the bitter reminder that no one had cared for Jon so. To them it was something they missed because they had it, to him, a pleasure never received before.

Even though Jon couldn't watch her as Arya did, he turned his head when he heard her movements, following her around the room in his mind since he couldn't with his eyes. His gratitude, his wonder at everything she thought to do for him was a painful experience. A woman's care should not be a novel experience to a man grown. She knew, without him telling her, there had been no such gentle nursing at the Wall, beyond it, or during his time with Daenerys. Hands had taken arrows from his bodies, mended his cuts, tended his injuries often enough, but there's a difference between treatment and care, curing and comfort.

As a girl she had been a doll, pretty, delicate, weak. As a woman she thought she had become unbreakable, that if she survived what she had, there was nothing left to touch her. But that was the thinking of a girl. Now she thought of her mother, how she prayed over them, watched over them, how she sat with Bran after he fell. How she must have felt when she heard about father. _No, you cannot be unbreakable if you choose to love._ For Sansa, it was not the threat of loss that undid her, she was accustomed to loved ones dying. It was the sudden fear that came with hope, that life may be more than suffering, and how could she accept that now? How could she enjoy _this_ , knowing it was only so much more to lose?

She felt like the glass she purchased to repair the glass gardens. How fragile it was in the rough grasp of the builders. Every time their dirty hands touched a pane she shuddered for fear it would shatter under their fingers. But it never did. She worried she would crack when they pieced it together, that a splinter of brokenness would run her length and that everything she had been trying to protect would freeze. But she didn't.

Every visit to Jon, something else within her crumbled, and soon it would give way. She felt vulnerable, as if all she had learned and become was once again under assault, not from the familiar risk of death, from something unknown. She thought what she felt might be possibility, that she was waiting for something, but first she must permit things to move, slide a little beyond comfortable reach. She wanted to falter there, to withdraw back to safety. For reasons she did not fully comprehend, she didn't, she couldn't resist the urge to change.

Maybe it was Arya. Ever since Petry's death, Arya had come as close to trusting her as someone like Arya could, and to have Jon home and he and Arya slowly becoming themselves again. Returning to how things were, it was everything she could hope for. _Almost_. She chased that thought away. But not that, not now. _This is enough_. It was; it wasn't. She could not even think of _that_ , or do anything about it. Everything was fragile, ice over a warming pond, waiting for the water to wear away from beneath, for the sun to beat down from above. She kept waiting for the ice to break, for the glass gardens to shatter, but they didn't. She didn't. Living was a sweet pain that she must learn how to savor. Every step unknown, precarious, but she would keep walking.

\---

Arya was too restless to sit in the room for long, but when she visited Jon she brought energy that he seemed to absorb just by being near her. She threw open his windows "Northern air--that's what you need." She would say confidently. "Don't tell Sansa" she would add in a quieter voice. She brought foods and drink he could hardly stomach, but that didn't matter. It made them laugh to smuggle foods and behave as children again.

Sansa scolded with a smile, never getting truly angry, no matter how often she caught the window open or foods stuffed under the furs on Jon's bed. She came to the room to find it cooler with color in Jon's cheeks, and she would sigh, close the window, remove the forbidden food. "Must you, Arya?" She'd ask.

"Yes, I must." And Arya would escape, leaving Jon alone to bear whatever lecture would occur. Jon slipped the disallowed treats under his pillow, attempting to hide the last bit, but Sansa knew he was too pleased with himself for there not to be a cause. "Where did you put it?"

"I haven't a thing."

"Arya brought you a cake, didn't she?"

"Yes, but...Ghost ate it."

Jon did his level best not to smile, knew he was failing, so he flipped over onto his stomach and hid his face in his pillow as if he were a boy. It jarred his body and he silently cursed himself for moving so quickly. He knew he was being childish, but there were few things more enjoyable than being half-heartedly scolded by Sansa. Unfortunately for him, Sansa was accustomed to the wiles of her sister. She slid her hand under his pillow to recover the smuggled goods, his efforts to hide them entirely ineffective. "You two are such--"

Jon slipped his hand under the pillow at the same time, grabbing hers, his face wearing an embarrassingly happy smile. Sansa's breathing quickened the moment his fingers wrapped around hers, and she stuttered over her words "--such ch-children. Playing games at your age."

"Am I too infirm to enjoy making you laugh?"

Sansa tried to withdraw her hand with the offending cake, but Jon gently held on to her wrist. "If making you laugh is a game, than that is a game we should play whatever our ages."

Jon expected her to pull away then, but instead she knelt by the bed and pushed her free hand over his curls. "You're teasing me! You're not a boy, and I am not a little girl, Jon." Yet, there was a softness in her touch as her fingers curled into his palm, a warmth in her voice as she reprimanded him, and something exquisite in the kiss she unexpectedly pressed to his forehead.

Jon knew that was the moment to release her, that he was pushing every reasonable boundary, but he kept hold of her. He just wanted one more moment before she left.

\---

Sansa began to bring her work to his room and sit with him while making notations in her ledgers, writing scrolls for ravens, reading over contracts. Sometimes she couldn't come until the evening, and she'd bring a book to read to him, or some sewing and talk about her day. Sometimes, she'd fall asleep in her chair, too exhausted to continue. But sometimes, many times, Jon could hear the pen stop, the cloth ease its rustle, her voice quiet and still. He would hear a change in her breathing, and he knew she was looking at him, studying his face. He never objected or noted it out loud. Hadn't he done the same to her when he had seeing eyes?

If it were anyone else he would have thought they were horrified at his face, the white glazed eyes, the scars covering so much of the right side that there wasn't enough unscarred skin to place a kiss. But this was Sansa.

He grew bolder, using his lack of eyesight as an excuse to himself for why he always needed to touch her hand when she came to visit him. _It helps to feel her presence, not just hear it_. _I can't see her face anymore_ was what he told himself, justifying a caress to her cheek. No matter what memories or pains plagued him, when she visited he would immediately find one smile or many.

When she was there, Jon felt that some small amount of light filtered into his endless night, that his world of blackness wasn't as dark as it had been before. His desire for her presence was insatiable, he always wanted her near, even if all they spoke of were masons and stones and how they were to pay for them. There was not a topic he wouldn't want to hear her speak of. She frequently explained a situation and asked for his opinion which he thoughtfully gave, but he was happy to leave the decision making in her hands. She noticed and told him he was cruel, and he merely laughed at her.

He could not speak of his affection. How could Sansa, of all people, burden herself with such a husband? He knew that she loved him, she loved all of her family dearly. That added to his uncertainty. He could not determine what part of her love was familial, how much was something else. She cared too much to say no if he asked, and he did not think he could live with himself if she said yes for any reason other than it was what she wanted.

As any sane man would do, he promptly turned his hesitancy into self torture. Taking every opportunity to drink in her voice, her presence, memorizing the press of her hand on his, relishing the curve of her cheek beneath his fingers, only to then relive each over and over every night while he lay in bed, telling himself to be content with what she gave, to never reach for more. But then he would remember her singing, hear her soothing humming, remember how her fingers combed through his hair if he neglected to brush it. _No_ , he told himself. _Never_. This was all he could ask for; he would take no more.

He could not speak of want when he had so much more than he deserved. A family who kept saving him and loving him and caring for him. He was alive and happier than he had any right to be. He did whatever Sam instructed in order to get well. He laughed and joked with Arya. He sat quietly with Bran. And yet, at night, he would think of what he wanted, and how he wanted it so desperately that sometimes the wanting was more painful than anything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am always worried when I begin reading WIP that I'll never get a resolution, so I just want you all to know that after I wrote the first chapter, I wrote a portion of the last. It is taking me longer/more words than I expected to get from the beginning to the end. I initially thought this was going to be 4-5 chapters total, and while it keeps growing, I do have a draft of the whole story now, and I will continue posting until it's completed. 
> 
> Also, I posted a ridiculous one-shot yesterday for laughs. I didn't include it as part of my series because it's crack/comedic and didn't fit the tone of my others, but if you're in the mood, please check it out.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before he had left for Dragonstone it was Jon who was exposed, Jon who needed her reassurances, Jon who would be hurt or angry and she who had to soothe him. But now she felt fully exposed as herself, she kept losing control, simply because Jon was being restored to her more and more each day.

 

 

Strength returned to Jon steadily, in small drips just as snow turns to water, so slowly that what was once white has become mud brown and young grass green before you realize that spring has pushed winter into the earth and thrown up its harbingers in its place.

His faltering steps had become surer, Sam and Arya everyday insisting he move even when he wanted to do anything but. Once when he was being particularly resistant after having stumbled repeatedly and finally fallen, Arya reminisced, "I was in pain once. I was stabbed in my stomach again and again, had to jump into the harbor to escape and then swim to safety. Climbed up algae coated steps, struggled through a market place." She shook her head yet had a faint smile on her face, as if the experience weren't entirely awful, "Thought I'd bleed to death."

Sam nodded calmly, as if yes, of course Arya would have experienced such a thing. He had learned to respond in such a manner when dealing with the revelations that would come out of her frequently now but always unexpectedly. He spoke to Jon, telling him that Arya was right, pain could not stop him, he must move.

Jon grimly took their arms again to pull himself up, pushing their hands away as soon as he was standing, he staggered across the room by himself, falling into the chair they always walked to, panting from the exertion. Sam congratulated him and then waited for Arya to join in, "A few days later I had to kill an assassin." The men were silent for a moment, completely taken aback, Arya belatedly realizing what had been expected of her. "But good work, Jon. I'm proud of you."

\---

Finally, what once was impossible was achieved and he rose from his bed by himself and walked across the room to his chair. When his feat had been accomplished multiple times to Sam's satisfaction, Jon's disbelief, and Arya's unimpressed, "Some of us learn to walk at a younger age, but I suppose it will do," which she followed up by lightly striking his shoulder, he began to move around the room more freely, his hands and feet wandering together to learn the paces from here to there.

Without any discussion between the three of them, but somehow all coming to a mutual agreement, none of them had told Sansa of the extent of Jon's progress. She knew he was moving about the room with help, but she was never permitted into their sessions. Their secrecy would not have been possible if it were not for how preoccupied Sansa was with her duties, the rebuilding process of Winterfell in earnest now, and the weather permitting Lords to travel with more ease, expecting audience with her regardless of her other duties.

One morning, very early, Sam supervised Jon's trip to his chair and left him, knowing Sansa would come to break their fast soon. When she appeared and saw him in a chair for the first time, she dropped the tray of food she held, standing in the doorway, frozen. Jon knew who it was, he always knew when it was her.

Everything within Sansa broke at once. A tear ripped through each piece of fur and leather she bound herself with, a weight crushed the chain of her necklace, and although she thought she had cried all her tears when she learned Jon would live, her sobs filled the room, and Jon reached for her to come, an offer to let him now give _her_ comfort.

She had been a dead riverbed, filled with the remains of every longing of a girlish heart: marriage, children, love, trust. Things she had thought to never experience, the bones layered across her so throughly there was little room for her to _feel_ what she felt.

But then, Jon lived. The flood of tears that night they learned Jon would live, raging joy and relief she could not control, had swept away the bones and cracked earth, all of it removed or subsumed by the violence of her emotions.

She felt she had been washed away in the torrent, that she was still somewhere beyond her own reach, but surely there was an end to it. Surely this was a temporary flood that would drain away to leave her as she had become. She would return to her stable self, her stoic self, her calm self, the cool and distant woman everyone thought she was.

Jon living, Jon walking, Jon sitting up and looking so much like himself in spite of the scarring and remaining bandages, now she was neither a dried up channel for a river to run through, nor was she a river crested. Now she was a deep well, and instead of being carried away, instead of being submerged in wild feelings beyond her control, now she was standing before him and then on her knees beside him, giving from her own depths and receiving from his, and she was not less and he was not more. Yet, every drop and drag and pull and raising of a bucket from her depths changed her, just as each changed him.

She sobbed every wrong thing and every good thing into her hands, kneeling by the man who had once meant almost nothing to her, and meant so very much to her now. This time it was not his blood that darkened her dress, but her tears.

"You do this a lot now" he said, his fingers tracking them down her cheek.

"I know." She half laughed which only made her cry all the more. "I preferred it when I didn't." She was trying to calm herself, gasping small breaths.

"I like it." Jon finding and tentatively stroking her hair, "Do you know why?"

"You're a horrible person who enjoys my suffering?" She hiccuped as she attempted to laugh at herself.

Jon smiled, "I like the reminder that you are one of us, that you are human too."

For some reason this wrung a few more tears from her, but eventually she calmed herself completely, and stepped away from him. She patted her hair back into smoothness and ran her hands down her dress as if it would remove the wrinkles.

Jon emptied a goblet he had been drinking from ever since Sam had advised it earlier, and Sansa was glad he was distracted, as she was finding it increasingly difficult to be reasonable and calm around him. She had spent so long being guarded and emotionless she thought it was second nature, but with him, she could never quite control herself. She was too angry or too gentle, too pushy or too compliant.

Before he had left for Dragonstone it was Jon who was exposed, Jon who needed her reassurances, Jon who would be hurt or angry and she who had to soothe him. But now she felt fully exposed as herself, she kept losing control, simply because Jon was being restored to her more and more each day.

Where he began and she left off was a difficult line to draw, it was hard for her to not immediately respond to his mood, his needs. They felt an extension of her own. And so she cried at this achievement, and knew she would weep again, and laugh, and then find new tears, because she was no longer her own, constantly finding new depths that she drew from compulsively for him, and he for her.

She glanced at him to see a peculiar expression crawling across his face. "Are you well, Jon?"

"Sansa, I--"

Her breath caught in her throat for a moment before he shook his head as if to clear it. It almost looked like a grin, but it could be a grimace that he wore. "I'm feeling a little lightheaded. Maybe I should--" he attempted to stand and his legs wobbled beneath him. She was immediately by his side. "Do you need help back to the bed?"

"If you wouldn't--"

Sansa put her arm around his waist, his going across her shoulders, as she helped him across the room. He stumbled, but she held him up until he collapsed onto the bed. Forgetting he still had his arm around her, he pulled Sansa down with him. They fell side by side laying across the width of the bed, Jon's eyes closing before his body had landed. He was awake, recovering his bearings.

Instead of getting up which Sansa knew would be the appropriate action, she stared at his face, for the first time in so long it was free of worry and pain. A small smile was creeping across it, and with his eyes closed, his curls disheveled, long and fallen everywhere, he looked young and carefree. How he should look. Without thinking she ran a finger through his hair, pulling a curl away from his face, trailing her finger over the wrinkles on his forehead he was far too young to have. She was so accustomed to the scars that in the moment those small lines of care struck her more than the puckered pink flesh.

"Tickles." Jon said without opening his eyes, making a sound that could have been a laugh, but came out mainly as a huff of air against her face. She wrinkled her nose, her eyes widened, "Jon, have you--have you been... _drinking_?"

Another huff, definitely laughter. He had most certainly been drinking. " _Jon_! Who--how much did you--where did you--"

"Poppy wine. Sam let me have some--" Jon hiccuped and smiled dopily, "'cuz my ribs were hurting...all the moving."

"I think it was far more effective than he--"

Suddenly, Jon's finger was poking at her face, his eyes still scrunched closed, and if there was one thing Sansa would have never anticipated happening in her entire life, it was probably Jon Snow trying to grab her nose. She shook her head, dislodging his roaming digits, and pushed him onto his back, quickly tucking him safely away under his furs before he did something _truly_ embarrassing. Even inebriated he was quick and his hand had emerged and caught hold of her braid, rubbing his thumb over the curves and dips of it before he sighed and sunk into asleep, muttering about something sweet and red. Sansa was quite flushed, amused _and_ embarrassed, wondering if she needed to curtail the medicinal wine drinking, even if it was Sam who ordered it.

When Jon awoke he could not recall what all he had done or said, but he could not stop blushing anytime Sansa spoke to him for he was certain he had done _something_. He remembered her helping him to the bed and he was almost certain he had dragged her down with him. Suddenly he shuddered, thinking he might have--did he tell her how sweet she is? Did he tell her how he loves her red hair? Had he laid in bed caressing her cheek? Perhaps that was simply the drink. He decided never to give into Sam's suggestions for easing his pain again. He closed his eyes and could feel Sansa running her fingers across his forehead. Agonizing points of coolness softly tracing shapes on a portion of his face that wasn't scarred. His own hand immediately went there, as if he could feel what lingered from her touch with his fingers. He wasn't imagining that, he could feel that in every part of his being. No, that didn't quite seem like Sansa, it was probably a dream. He really would talk to Sam or else he would never stop blushing. He wasn't sure he could stop now, not if he kept having such thoughts.

As humiliating as it was, the next time he was alone with her, he asked Sansa if his behavior had been inappropriate, but she enjoyed his embarrassment too much to put him out of his misery. "It was--" she sighed and looked down at her feet "--rather shocking, Jon" and he, aghast, stammered out apologies at an alarming rate, creating all sorts of _other_ things he might had said or done that were so much worse than he had previously imagined. He was not easy until the last iteration had her laughing so hard she gasped for air, at which point he realized she had been teasing him. He wasn't sure that she had ever teased him so before, but he liked it almost as much as he loved the sound of her laughter.

He _did_ mind that she apparently found it so entertaining she felt the need to tell Arya who began tweaking his nose on a regular basis. "So red! So _sweet_ " she would croon, her ignorance of what he had been referring to making the experience all the more mortifying. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But sitting in his dark room, he couldn't tell day from night. He only knew that Sansa's "Good morning, Jon" was the rising sun, her "Goodnight" it falling from the sky.

 

 

 

Although Jon was finally able to move around his room on his own, he resisted leaving it.

One refusal was enough for Sam to leave the subject be, it took only a few times refusing Arya before he could feel Sansa's disapproval, but Sansa never asked him to. She came to him so often he marveled at the pity she must feel to move her so. It pained him that she was so desperate for family she happily spent evenings in his company, even if Arya and Bran didn't.

On those private evenings sometimes Jon thought Sansa's voice lighter, her laugh brighter. It felt a betrayal so he did not say it, but sometimes he admitted to himself that those were his favorite evenings, because they were free to talk as they wished without worrying about what Arya would think or what Bran might inconveniently discover. He told himself it was his own happiness that made him think Sansa behaved differently, his own insecurities that made him more comfortable, but he thought of her voice, he thought of her laugh, and he had to force himself to not believe it was more than it was.

He thought there had never been greater pleasure than to sit before the fire, with Ghost's head on his knee, in silence or in conversation, but on rare nights he acknowledged to the darkness that maybe he had always admired gentility, maybe he had always wanted a Lady wife not a warrior, maybe he had never wanted glory in battle as much as he desperately longed to raise a family in Winterfell. He had no use for swords when he could have a song, no use for the adulation of men when he could sit peacefully with the woman he loved.

He thought of how he and the others had laughed at Sansa for poring over the genealogy and pedigrees of the noble houses, teased her for how she labored over her sewing, shrugged at her singing, and now, all he wanted was to be near her while she did any or all of those things.

He thought of how her graces and knowledge, her strength that did not come from violence but the ability to withstand and endure it in every form, had allowed her to survive King's Landing, Baelish, and Ramsay until she came to him. He groaned over how stupid he was, how stupid they all were, how little they had understood.

He thought of how she must have struggled to control the Lords while he was South, how she had worked to calm them and remind them of their oaths upon the news of his parentage.

He thought of Daenerys.

He told himself to stop, that Sansa held nothing against him, he held nothing against her, he reminded himself of that repeatedly, and yet, for a man raised on portions of shame, it was difficult to give up eating it daily, no matter the assurances that it was no longer his lot.

Even then, even when his mind listed out all the cause for self-recrimination, Jon could not be depressed, in spite of it all, he could not help but think that this was the happiest he had ever been. In some sad way his injuries gave him what he wanted, what he could not have as a healthy man.

Not only was he confined to safety, a man incapable of what most men must do, his recovery had permitted an intimacy with Sansa that had never existed before, even when they had retaken Winterfell.

They had cared for each other even then, but they had not the leisure or the ability to bridge every gap between them while he was a man and she a woman, family though they were.

He was more honest with her than he had been with anyone since Sam. No, perhaps more honest, as Sansa always had a special way of extricating more from him than he intended to give. He knew it was true of her, that ever since she was a girl she had had no one she could trust completely, so when she permitted herself to be open and vulnerable with him simply because he was the first and only family she had for a time, it overwhelmed him. That Lady Sansa had deemed him trustworthy enough to entrust him with everything, that she thought him wise enough to respect him, that while they argued, she was not always successful in pulling him to her way, and sometimes even came to his point of view. He had felt like a man gone mad. How could he resist it? How could he resist _her_?

But walks around the battlements when they argued policy or tried to convince the other of their wrongness was nothing like having Sansa sit in a chair beside him in the evening, or on his bed as she tended to him. It was nothing like the intimacy between patient and nurse. Nothing like what existed between them now. Nothing like what laced their silences with meaning.

Their time together at Winterfell before did not permit reminiscing and daydreaming, there had been little room for speaking of the far past or distant future because so much needed to be done for the present and the approaching threats. But now, there was an expanse of of untouched snow with no specter rising over it. They could do as they chose, walk whichever path they wanted, live as they deemed fit, which is why he was continually humbled by her.

He was no longer King, he was no longer of political significance, presumed dead by most of Westoros, and yet, she came, seeking his advice, because she wanted to.

He was no longer her brother, and yet she came, time after time to his room to be with him, because she wanted to. As if being together was what made her happiest too.

His wounds were nearly all healed, she no longer fiddled with bandages, so there was no cause for her to occasionally sit on his bed as she tended him, and he missed that close presence, that consuming knowledge that he was not alone, she was there. Sitting together was a comfort, but he missed her hands, he missed her hair, he missed that feeling when touch wasn't necessary to know that she was nearer than near.

With his health came his strength, but also some withdrawal on Sansa's part, as was entirely proper, but he missed it. He missed how she fussed over him, although he didn't think he would ever own to it, and it aggravated him to no end when Sam was overly solicitous.

No, Sansa would never permit that same closeness or that contact if he were healthy, not now that they were cousins, not even as siblings. Soon, whenever he was pulled from his room and forced to live among them again, she would no longer sit alone with him for hours in his room, it wouldn't be proper, and for all the things that have changed, her propriety wasn't one of them.

He knew there was nothing proper about how he wanted her. It didn't matter what had transpired in the interim, what titles and honors and victories he had won. In his mind he would always be a bastard and she a Lady. Whatever the Targaryen side of him was, it didn't change what he had always been. Claiming it for a time was only serving a temporary purpose. He told himself sternly that they were cousins, that she loved him as family, that was all.

But sitting in his dark room, he couldn't tell day from night. He only knew that Sansa's "Good morning, Jon" was the rising sun, her "Goodnight" it falling from the sky. Perhaps it was still snowing outside, or maybe the world was green with the revitalization of Spring, he couldn't tell. He only knew that her voice made him see blue skies full of birds, her touch made him see the frozen rivers breaking free, roaring out their life. He may have been living in a drab stone room, incapable of seeing even that, but his world was full of the colors of the North, with streaks of copper hair.

He was grateful Sam never questioned him, that Arya had decided to bite her tongue, and wondered if Sansa saw his attachment to her as the natural result of what they had undergone together, or if she knew what it was and could barely stomach it. He could try to control his reaction to her. He told himself to not be so clearly happy anytime she was with him, but for all the times he had been called broody, for how often he had sulked as a boy, he could not find it in him to bemoan anything, not when she was choosing day after day to love him.

Because she did, he knew it. She hadn't treated him with anything but love since they reunited before the wars. It was disconcerting to be paid compliments while simultaneously being disagreed with and lectured, but how she had fought with him because she was _for_ him. She had been, perhaps, more desperate for his success than he was. And now, how well she loved him.

There were no lectures or arguments, and he knew it was only a matter of time before she would mention his need to leave his sanctuary, she would probably drag him from this room forcibly if he didn't voluntarily leave soon, but the more he felt what they had alter, the more he wanted it to stay. What would happen once he took that step out the door? How would she love him then? He could not bear to think of it. Not when she loved him so now. He reveled in that, a pleasure he could never tire of.

\-----

Jon didn't know if Arya had seen something or heard something, if she'd put together the pieces and come to her own conclusions, or if she had simply been waiting for his health to improve before she spoke to him, but one morning she wandered aimlessly around his room, clearly working through what was in her mind by tracing patterns with her feet, until abruptly turning on him, "Sansa fainted when we heard about you. She didn't blink when we slit Baelish's throat, kept everyone else calm during the battle for Winterfell, never faltered when you were away, but when that Raven came, it was like she had been struck down herself."

Jon's hand went to the faded scar from Orell's eagle, rubbing it as was his habit and Arya proceeded with a full unburdening of what happened when they had gone for him, not sparing his ears any details of her opinion of his aunt.

"You should have seen Sansa. She was carved from living marble, remembering the names and offering niceties to the few Lords and Ladies gathered in the throne room paying homage to the Targaryen. She looked like a flame in the darkness, and the conquerer," Arya's face spoke her repulsion, as did her tone, "The Dragon Queen's perfectly braided hair was placed just so, her wide eyes screamed goodness and innocence even though she sat on a charred throne, in a burned out castle, on the ash covered rock of King's Landing."

Then surprisingly, Arya's voice became thick with emotion, her eyes became a little damp, and Jon knew she fought tears, even without seeing them.

"She knelt. Sansa went down on her knees, asking for the chance to save you. Cersei never looked more beautiful than Sansa did, pale, but firm. Daenerys never seemed more weak, making a woman beg for the man she--" Arya stopped herself to correct her course. "I've never seen someone look more like a queen. No one in that room questioned who was worthy of such a title and who was not. Sansa was born to be queen, I never understood that before. I can't imagine her as a girl, begging for father's--"

"Don't. Let's not talk of it." Jon had not wept while Arya spoke, but his voice was heavy, and no amount of messaging of his scars would work away the pain.

Arya nodded, forgetting Jon couldn't see her agreement, and continued. "When we got you on the ship, Sansa took your bandages off so that she could examine you and--I've cut people's faces off Jon. Cut them right off after killing their owner's. Yours looked worse then some of them."

Jon couldn't help but permit a harsh laugh at that. "I think you're taking advantage of the fact that I never saw for myself how bad it was."

"I left the room. I had to vomit. I couldn't, didn't want to look at you. But Sansa sat down and examined you. She cut off dead skin and cleaned every wound, then demanded a needle, ran it through flame, and threaded it. Those scars on your face are her stitches." Arya thumped down on Jon's bed, groaning into her hands, "Gods! I used to make fun of her needlework, I used to laugh at it. But she took out her needle and put your face back together with it."

Jon's face flooded with his own shame. "We were children. What did we know?"

"I knew you would say that, but you don't know. When I came back from Braavos, you weren't here. Sansa was in charge, and the Lords were angry with you, and I didn't understand. I--"

"Don't tell me, Arya." Jon wasn't sure if he simply did not want to learn of more pain that Sansa endured, if he didn't want Arya to suffer through some confession, or if he did not want cause to be angry with her. "You don't have have to tell me anything. As long as you--you and Sansa understand each other, I don't need to know."

Arya accepted that as a request to permit him to live in ignorance of past strife between them, and she was relieved.

"I only wanted to tell you that she's the reason we made it through, all of us. She's the best person I know."

"She's a great deal like your mother."

"Yes, she is." Arya seemed to recall that there may be several less positive associations with that admission. "She does love you Jon."

"I know."

Arya did not ask many questions, she observed, and what she observed she kept locked away where she could safely retrieve it and examine it later. But it had now been months since they had come home, and she was tired of her silence.

"Do you love her?"

"Of course. Sansa and I--of course."

"No, Jon. Do you _love_ her."

Jon was startled that Arya spoke to him of _love_. He would never expect anything but absolute candor from her, yet he had failed to expect her to want to talk about feelings. He did not answer her question.

"How could you not love her?"

Yes, Jon thought, weary, confused, happy. _How could I not_?

Arya was far more earnest than he expected, then she immediately sounded like herself again. "Now, you need to start moving. You can't lay around moping up here if you ever want to be worthy of the Lady of Winterfell."

"Arya, that's--I can't--we could _never_ \--" he stopped, waiting for her to speak again and relieve him of the burden. When she didn't, he began again, slowly, "What I did or didn't, do or don't feel is irrelevant. I am happy to just live among you. Sansa deserves happiness, and she will find it some day."

He could not see Arya's face to understand what her reaction was, but he had been telling himself the same thing for weeks and thought he had done a convincing job on the retelling.

Arya spoke again, seemingly willing to leave the topic alone. "I can teach you a thing or two about water dancing once you're a little more steady on your feet."

"Dancing?"

"No, not what you think. Don't worry--I'll never trust you enough for _that_." She laughed as she opened the door, to leave him, "Why would I want to dance? Why would I ever offer to dance with you?! Seven hells, Jon. _Wrong sister_!"

The door slammed, but he could hear her cackling her way down the corridor. He adored Arya, he did, but sometimes he really didn't.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not deliberately dragging this out to make you suffer, but apparently my idea of a good time is Jon locked in a room with his feelings. Let's not psychoanalyze that, please. 😆
> 
> This chapter was supposed to have a Jonsa scene, but I haven't finished that yet, so it will be up next, in chapter 10. Also, Gendry is coming in chapter 11. 
> 
> Thank you all for the comments and kudos! You guys are the best!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "She quieted, their breathing unconsciously synchronizing as they listened to the hot spring water flowing through the wall, warming it. "When I place my cheek to the stone, and I hear that sound, feel it's warmth, it's a knowing that goes beyond any knowledge in my head, it digs into my bones. I am safe. Arya, Bran, and you are safe. We are safe in the Walls of Winterfell."

 

 

When it was just the two of them, Sansa often put aside her sewing to read to him in the evenings rather than allow him to lose himself in memories. She worried that he would grow morose, she wondered at his good humor, on occasion she would look around the room for a tell-tale goblet, suspecting his attitude was wine induced. She never noted any, and did not have a ready explanation for his behavior.

It was helpful to her to bring her work to his room, to mention an issue she was to address with the lords, a question she had not yet found the answer to. More than ever before Jon carefully listened to her, and often made a suggestion that if she did not agree with, softened her perspective, allowed her to analyze the decision anew. She found she wanted to hear his thoughts as much as she wished to express her own.

For all the time they spent thus, all the evenings reminiscing with Arya and Bran, they primarily spoke of the routine and mundane, not about what had happened, never touching anything after he had left that second time, to go to war for the second time, to fight for Daenerys. She wasn't afraid to speak of it, of why he had felt, what he had done, she knew him too well for that. It was only that she could feel the edges of his pain as clearly as she could see his scars, and some wounds take longer to heal.

One night, when they sat before the fire alone, she could tell he was lost in his mind, sunken deep, wandering far afield. She continued to read to him, but stole quick glances when she could until he finally interrupted her to ask, "When Lady died--" And he stopped, as if he suddenly realized what he wanted to say could only be unwelcome, painful.

Sansa answered anyway, connecting this and that and discerning what memories he had been lost to. "Part of me died as well." She paused, unsure if she should say it, but knowing why he asked she proceeded. "I am sorry about your dragon." She closed her book and set it aside.

"It was--not like Lady, not like it would be if Ghost--" Jon couldn't say that, the thought too painful to complete. "--but he screamed when the arrows hit him, and when I hear it now, it sounds like my name. The last thing I saw was his wing curling around me, and we fell, and kept falling. I wake up, and think I'm still wrapped in his wing, and then I remember. I sometimes feel that I should have died, that the dragons were meant to die out, and it is wrong some of us still live."

"Jon, you are a wolf, the White Wolf, you must never believe any of that. You were never really a dragon, not to me."

"I was a fool, wasn't I? To fly away with her? To fight for something I didn't care about. To think I'd be able to control a dragon, to win a war on foot she wanted to win on wings?"

"None of that matters now. You are home."

Unwilling to be so easily mollified, Jon turned his thoughts to the Queen. "She isn't mad, yet. She does not understand justice, is unprepared to be a good queen, but she isn't mad."

"She isn't Cersei." Sansa said, as if that was the only thing that mattered to her, and Jon wondered if it was all the endorsement she needed for a Southern ruler.

"We were to force Cersei to surrender, we had defeated her armies in the field and she would have had to surrender the city or starve, but Daenerys could not wait. Dragons take what is theirs, they take what they want. I followed her on Rhaegal's back, and didn't allow him to burn anything, I thought--even then I thought she could be stopped. I don't know how. I can see her, see her face when she said that word. I can see her, flying through the smoke coming off the burning bodies. I've never seen anything so horrible, and sometimes it's all I can think of, that image and those sounds, over and over again."

"No wonder you over indulge in wine" Sansa teased him gently.

He smiled, too torn to laugh at the moment.

She began again, her voice a caress in the dark, "You did the only thing you could do. You saved the North, you saved all of Westoros, and then you tried to save the South, were nearly killed for your troubles. One man cannot defeat every monster."

There had been monsters, many kinds, for each of them. Safe as they were, happy as he was, sometimes he still doubted if they had truly escaped. It was too beautiful a thought to be true.

"The strangest part is how I just have to believe. I know I'm in Winterfell, but sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night, I wonder if it's real or if I'm just tricking myself. Am I really here, talking with you? Or in an abandoned barn burning with fever? I have to choose to believe what I know."

Sansa rose, and pulling Jon with her, went to an expanse of the plain, stone wall. "I haven't hung a tapestry here or in mother and father's room because I like to do this."

Jon was startled by her cool hand pushing his head toward the wall until his cheek rested against a large stone. He ran his fingers along the grout holding it in place, tracing the irregular shape, the roughness of stone and mortar a pleasant change of texture from the cloth and furs his hands usually met. Sansa stood close enough to him that when she placed her cheek to the wall, his fingers walked across her chin until he pulled them back.

She spoke in a whisper, but in the quiet of the room, standing so close he could hear her perfectly. "Sometimes I worry that this is a dream. That I never escaped, that I'll wake up, and _he_ will still be here. No matter how many times I tell myself the wars are over, that you aren't leaving again, I'll wake up gasping for air, or start feeling faint in a meeting because I just know you aren't up here, that I am alone after all."

Jon extended his fingers again towards her, misjudged his aim, and landed in the fur around her shoulders. He pulled his hand through the warm, coarse hairs until he felt the cool chain of her necklace, the one she had almost always worn since returning to Winterfell. Allowing his hand to drift up the chain, he fingered the links, noticing how cool they were, except those few that rested against her neck. His hand quickly moved up her throat, finally reaching her cheek, brushing it in a tentative, soft gesture.

"Sometimes it's something small, a dog's howl or a certain creak of wood, and I'll start to shake. I come to the walls, and I listen to the water." She quieted, their breathing unconsciously synchronizing as they listened to the hot spring water flowing through the wall, warming it. "When I place my cheek to the stone, and I hear that sound, feel it's warmth, it's a knowing that goes beyond any knowledge in my head, it digs into my bones. I am safe. Arya, Bran, and you are safe. We are safe in the Walls of Winterfell."

Jon's fingers were still on her cheek so he could feel her smile as he nodded. She was pleased he understood her although she could not explain the depth of what she meant. He understood and had not laughed.

Although he couldn't see anyway, he closed his eyes out of habit, to better absorb the sensations: the sound of the water, the craggy stone pressed against his cheek, Sansa's smile beneath his fingers.

He didn't know the song of the water, but he was sure it was one, and it lulled and soothed him as Sansa had known it would. The water sang with too much power for a lullaby, too gently to be an anthem. It flowed and poured through the walls like the Starks who had lived in the castle for generation upon generation. Starks fought for it, loved within it, the stones always standing steady, the waters always running warm. It sang to him as it sang to them all. He was a Stark, Sansa was a Stark. They were bound to this land, this home, giving their blood for it their duty, for it in turn gave them life.

"I used to stand here as a little girl, thinking there was some sort of magic in the Walls of Winterfell."

He could feel her cheeks rise as her smile grew wider in the recollecting.

"Is there?" He asked, feeling susceptible to mysteries beyond his understanding.

"Would you believe me if I said yes?"

He extended his hand just a little more, until he was not just touching, but now cradled her cheek in his palm. "I think I will believe anything you say," he whispered against the stone.

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gendry grinned at her, "I know I am a handsome man, Arya, but you needn't openly gape at me."

 

Arya found Jon's recovery difficult to bear. As much as she loved him, it was hard to sit endlessly enclosed in walls. She supposed that was a part of her that she hadn't lost and never would. Jon's noticeable _fondness_ for Sansa was half amusing and half heartbreak. Sansa loved him, that was certain, but she was convinced Sansa would do the same for her or Bran, perhaps with fewer tears at the beginning, and fewer smiles now. Arya was not at all sure that Sansa's love was of the same fervor as Jon's. Jon was, well, rather pathetic in his longing. She saw it, Sam and Gilly saw it, she wasn't sure if Sansa didn't or if she chose not to.

Sansa was not a girl to share confidences, there would be no late night whispering of secrets. Arya wouldn't know what to say if Sansa had tried. She thumbed through Sansa's interactions with Jon, pausing over some, skipping over others. She spent an inordinate amount of time in the darkened room with their cousin, and even when forced to be elsewhere, it was as if she mentally never left.

She thought of how Sansa's fingers ran down her necklace or twisted against each other as she listened to petitioners, discussed issues of concern with the Lords, read raven after raven, studied ledgers full of numbers Arya had no interest in. She thought of how her fingers didn't fidget as much when in Jon's room, how somehow his presence prevented those small signs of anxiety, how Sansa's face seemed a little softer, that much more relaxed. She was able to be _still_ when sitting with him, and the way she looked at him...well, Sansa had to be in love with him, why else would she behave so? But, Sansa wasn't her. Sansa was much softer, more loving, just as she could also be so cold and distant.

Perhaps this was how women were, Arya didn't know any well enough to judge. Except, there was Gilly, how she cared for Sam, distinct from and similar in some ways to Sansa. Sansa reminded her so much of their mother and Jon their father...Arya rubbed her shoulder, trying to release the knots. She wished whatever Jon and Sansa were doing could be already done, how they were processing the past and determining their new relationship was taking far too long.

As was Jon's recovery. He could certainly be out and about now, but he had as yet to budge beyond his room. She was tired of would or wouldn't, too accustomed to her own way of did or didn't to endure much more of this interminable waiting. Jon was sitting in his chair, busy in his own mind, his fingers running through Ghost's fur, how he could be so content befuddled her. To have survived what he had, made the sacrifices he made, for it to end here, stuck in a room with a fire, a young man in an old's man's life.

Arya shook her head, not wanting to think on any of it. She kept finding similarities in herself to her sister, noting something about Sansa only to see it reflected in herself, to say it was confusing was an understatement. The longer she stayed in Winterfell the more she found her new self slipping. It wasn't quite like rediscovery, it felt more like possibility. It was sensing that there was somehow more than what she had been as a girl, more than what she had been taught as an assassin, more than what kept driving her through the wars, more than how she was now. She was standing in an empty field in Spring, knowing that there was space and time to plant and grow.

But what did Arya know of that? What did know of herself now? What had she ever known of living? She looked at Jon, what allowed him to bear this? What did he know that she did not? What did he have that made him willing to smile and laugh while so severely punished?

She wondered at Sansa, that she should have endured and retained so much of what she had been taught to be, instead of abandoning it all as lies. At least Arya had learned of death, she had been prepared, but Sansa, what a cruel world she met unawares. But now, having endured, it seemed that Sansa was prepared for life. Arya worried that she wasn't.

A gentle rapping, Sansa's knock on the door, and then she was in the room, followed by a very familiar man who hovered in the doorway, uncertain of what he should do with himself.

Gendry didn't know how Arya would react to seeing him, Arya wouldn't have been able to predict it either, so both were surprised when Gendry stepped into the room and was immediately in Arya's arms. Arya was possibly more surprised than Gendry, as she wasn't even aware of the gasp or of taking the first or second steps, or of having leapt up into Gendry's arms. For one moment they were as children before the war, but when they stepped away from each other they knew it was not so. They were both entirely different.

An awkward laugh came from Arya, Gendry offered a pat on her head, and the strangeness swelled between them. Arya tugged him further into the room so that he could greet Jon and Ghost could give him a satisfactory sniff, also giving her an opportunity to distract Gendry from looking at her face which she was completely incapable of controlling at the moment.

Jon and Gendry greeted each other as old friends, Arya surprised to learn that Gendry had been one of the party that ventured beyond the Wall. She thought to ask of it later, and find out where Gendry had gone after.

Sansa didn't mind interrupting the men and asked if Gendry had any difficulties traveling, and he shook his head. She touched his shoulder, a familiarity with a strange man that was unlike her, guiding him to a chair with genuine warmth in her face. "We are relieved you have survived it all, and returned safely."

Arya looked from her sister to her friend, surprised that Sansa spoke so, that she even knew who Gendry was, surprised at the pink that rose to the tips of Gendry's ears. She opened her mouth to ask when they had met and decided to bite her tongue just as she did. So there she stood, her mouth open with no words forthcoming.

Gendry grinned at her, "I know I am a handsome man, Arya, but you needn't openly gape at me."

Arya flushed with annoyance, but before she could retort Jon was laughing and declaring they needed ale. Sam came, as if summoned by the wish, _probably Sansa's foresight_ thought Arya, and before she could say anything at all, Sansa put an arm around her to pull her away from the reminiscing men and from the room. Arya was too surprised and confused to protest.

In the corridor Sansa gave Arya a small, sly smile as they walked, "He _does_ has nice eyes."

"I wasn't gawking at how attractive he was! I was--"

"Really? Did you notice his arms. He's very strong. He could lift you above his head without hesitation."

"Sansa, please."

"Yes? Oh, do you think we should ask for a demonstration. Seems rude not to at this point." Sansa began to turn back to Jon's room causing absolute panic to descend upon Arya.

"Sansa!"

"I'm not doing any such thing." Sansa laughed at her sister's desperation. "We will let Jon entertain our guest while we eat with Gilly and Little Sam in my solar. I think you need to relax before attempting another conversation with poor, innocent Gendry."

Arya again wondered how Sansa knew him, but before she presented her question, Sansa startled her with her own strange declaration. "I was not always as I am now. You will not always be as you are, unless you want to be."

"What are you saying?"

"I mean," Sansa rubbed her hands together, worrying her fingers as she searched for words. "You can change, allow a new part of who you are grow until you are, as a whole, different."

"Are you advising me to?" Arya's voice was not sharp, but neither was it warm.

Sansa sighed, stopped walking, put her hands on Arya's shoulders, then lightly smoothed Arya's hair, an affectionate gesture Sansa hadn't previously presumed to try. Arya closed her eyes thinking that it could have been their mother caressing her, speaking to her, and longing filled her, softened her, made her listen.

"You could go on adventures, sail the seas, work as an assassin, but you don't have to. You could stay here, with us, live in the North with your people, squabble with me, get Jon into mischief, create your own form of happiness with...Gendry."

Arya could not hide her reaction to the last, her eyes popping open in spite of herself, her mouth as well which made the second time Sansa had managed to elicit that reaction from her in one afternoon.

"I know what you mean to each other. You spoke of him, many times in telling of your adventures, and, I don't know if I have ever heard you speak of anyone that way. And his face when you hugged him, there's no hiding that." Sansa removed her hands from Arya, "But what I'm saying is, no one who is left will make you do one thing or the other. All I want is for you to be well, and when you came back and threatened to cut off my face, you weren't Arya."

"And now I am?"

"Well," Sansa rolled her eyes, "there is something more recognizable in you than before. I cannot choose for you, Jon can't, Gendry can't. I just, I asked for him to go--"

"He was here before?"

"Yes, before the Great War. I asked him to leave, immediately, because--it was necessary. I also asked for him to come back because I want you to be happy. More than anything, I want to see you, not a stranger. You are different, we all are, but you can change without changing who you are and--I do not wish to lose my sister."

They stood in the cool corridor, Sansa waiting for what she did not know, Arya struggling with what she could not say.

Arya always had the urge to walk away, but Sansa was trying to give her what she wanted, another reason to stay, as if she feared that they were not enough. As if Sansa, Bran, and Jon were not sufficient cause for Arya to struggle against whatever it was that pulled her away.

She could not know what she would do, if she would go or stay, but Sansa had given her, well, what had Sansa given her? Guidance? Direction? Permission. It was permission to be whatever she chose without conforming to things she long ago rejected. It was permission to embrace what she had rejection, in a different form, or altogether, without pretending to be a Lady like Sansa. It was permission to become whatever she chose to be, and she hadn't known that was what she was waiting for, but relief filled her, and hope. Having it come from Sansa felt like having her parents' blessing. She put her arms around her older sister. "I will be well. I promise."

She still wondered what Sansa meant by saying she had sent Gendry away, but they had reached their destination and Sansa opened the door to find Gilly wanting an opinion on a raven from Horn Hill, and Little Sam babbling happily as Sansa picked him up. He promptly struck Arya in her nose, whether purposefully or not was insignificant to Arya, she always enjoyed a little violence.

"You are beginning young little man. Make sure you curl your hand like so to strike a proper blow." And Arya lost herself to adjusting the toddler's fist, her questions left unanswered.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few things! 
> 
> In the show, Gendry and Arya will be reunited before the war with the White Walkers, for my own reasons, that's not what happened here. You'll get an explanation, eventually.
> 
> The chapter count has changed mainly because every time I get stuck on a scene, I just push it to the next chapter so I can keep posting frequent updates. I'm pretty sure this is the final tally and that there will be 18 normal chapters, the 19th being the epilogue I wanted from the beginning. 
> 
> Chapter 12 has some Gendry/Arya that I am chortling over. And Jon will FINALLY leave his room because Sansa decides it's time.
> 
> Thank you so much for the kudos and comments! Knowing you guys are enjoying the story makes the effort worthwhile.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "No, not when you fight the way you do." He did have a habit of openly admiring her which was flattering. He really wasn't all that annoying.

 

 

  
To Arya's complete consternation, Sansa would not permit Gendry to work in the smithy. Arya had led him to the castle forge, intending to introduce him him to the other blacksmiths, thinking he would enjoy returning to what he knew, having some duty to perform, but Sansa had materialized before he had touched a hammer and forbidden it in such an earnest way Arya simply didn't know what to think. "You are my guest," Sansa said, "our guest" she amended, motioning to include Arya. "You will not work while you are here." Arya shrugged and asked if Gendry wanted to go for a ride. Sansa could be as peculiar as she liked, it didn't matter to her.

Or so Arya thought.

Sansa was so effective at weaving Gendry into the tapestry of their lives that there was no ignoring the oddity of it all. If he and Jon weren't laughing together, he was pushing Bran here or there, or sometimes simply sitting near him, asking for stories of their fathers, looking at Bran with awed reverence. He somehow became of special help to Sansa who, while she sought out Jon for advice, appreciated having Gendry look over the rebuilding process with her. She speaking to him and he cheerfully hollering orders at men and calling them idiots while dictating exactly what was to be done according to the Lady of Winterfell, all as if this were perfectly normal. Sometimes he even accompanied Sansa when she ventured beyond Winterfell's walls as if he were one of her guards. When some visiting lord's disagreement with Sansa became too vehement, Gendry's presence and glower were as effective at reinstating the proper decorum as Arya's fingers that still instinctively slid down to her blade until she reminded herself that she wasn't allowed. _That_ Sansa didn't permit.

Initially surprised, frequently annoyed by the inexplicable respect Sansa had for Gendry and his deference to her, Arya finally accepted it without too much sulking. It was endlessly befuddling to her that Gendry was so at ease with her sister and she with him. It was almost as if he were another brother to Sansa, Jon, and Bran. He came and went from their meetings and meals whether in their solars or the Great Hall as it pleased him, his complete comfort with the arrangement disconcerting to her for reasons Arya could not quite explain. This is how she would have wanted it if she could have dictated it. Nonetheless, it was strange to know there was more between her sister and friend than she knew. Not that she thought of it endlessly, but it was odd how Gendry had arrived and been placed into their lives in ways that felt so very right, as if he were supposed to be there.

She remembered before, what she had offered him, _"I can be your family."_ She thought of how his mouth had quirked, pleased and amused at her offer but knowing better. _"You wouldn't be my family. You'd be m'lady."_ Arya had very nearly made that happen, unthinkingly establishing him at Winterfell as what he had always been, but somehow, without Sansa knowing of that conversation, she had known. Without a conversation or word to Arya, she had not only accepted Gendry as a mere guest or childhood friend, but placed him time and again in a position of trust and respect, making him one of them without saying so in words but all the while saying it so forcefully with her actions that it was accepted by all, even Gendry himself.

Arya suspected this was the second time Sansa had taken a bastard and made him feel respected and valued as he had never been before. She gathered that much of what her sister did, her new found need for a male champion, was not so much a necessity as much as a convenience to her that meant a great deal more to Gendry's perception of himself and his relation to them than any of them would ever acknowledge openly. She had her speculations, but she could not bring herself to do more than notice and wonder.

If she was less proud she might have learned more, she might have asked her question, but as it was, Gendry was yet another person to entertain Jon, to assist Sansa, to semi-worship Bran, so she could ignore her annoyance for the time being. And it was good, _good_ to have Gendry safe in Winterfell, although she did not feel the need to share that thought with anyone.

\---

Arya was in the training yard, having slaughtered yet another dummy by filling it with more holes than she could say, when she decided to acknowledge Gendry, who stood a few feet away."Where were you?"

"A lot of places."

He smiled, kept his arms crossed, and seemed perfectly at ease. _Infuriating_. "What for?"

"Work, making things."

Arya rolled her eyes at his uninformative answers. "Sooner or later you're going to tell me."

"I will. Just using your curiosity to guarantee you keep me alive long enough to have it satisfied."

"You've gotten smarter."

"You haven't gotten any taller."

"I don't need to be tall."

"No, not when you fight the way you do." He did have a habit of openly admiring her which was flattering. He really wasn't all _that_ annoying.

"Have you been watching me?"

"Yes."

His smile never wavered, his voice firm, but his confidence couldn't keep him from blushing, apparently.

"Come on" she said, nodding him over. "Let's have a go."

"No, I couldn't. Sansa wouldn't--"

"She's busy. She'll never know."

Gendry looked around, as if to assure himself that a disapproving older sister wasn't looking on, knowing he really shouldn't, but he _was_ curious.

"I'm no good with a sword" he muttered, picking one up nonetheless. "Promise you won't hurt me too badly?"

"You should stand sideface" Arya instinctively guided, and then stopped, both of them remembering Harrenhal. Her eyes softened a bit, and he smiled. "This isn't a fair fight to begin with, and turned sideways I'm still a much bigger target than you."

"Whinging already, Gendry?"

"Why does everyone always think I'm--Look here, I've--"

Arya had not invited Gendry into the arena for a conversation. She lunged, nearly knocking his sword from his hand, but Gendry was a little quicker on his feet than she expected and he spun away, setting his stance, waiting for her to come again. She did, striking high and then low, slower than she could have moved, but not _that_ much slower. Somehow he kept meeting her blows, then struck one himself with such force her hand tingled and her shoulder felt a jolt of pain from the shock rolling through her body. He was already panting though, gripping his sword too tightly. He wouldn't last long.

She walked around him, just beyond his reach, darting in once to slap his leg with the side of her sword, a second time to swipe at his heals, enjoying her sure victory. She flashed her blade through the air, very close to his head, and his eyes widened a bit, but he calmly kept turning as she circled him, facing her, even if her assaults were too quick for him to react. "You have to keep moving, Gendry" she teased. In retrospect, taunting was probably not her best idea, but she did so enjoy having the upper hand she hadn't calculated any response on his part.

No sooner had she spoken than he threw down his sword and charged, moving much faster than she had given him credit for. She didn't have time to do anything more than let out what she felt was a horrifyingly feminine squeal before he had picked her up and instead of holding her, tossed her several feet away as if she were a sack of grain.

Like a cat she landed on her feet, but with too much momentum to hold herself upright, she fell backwards into the dirt. "Seven hells!" She yelled, more surprised than hurt, "What was that?!"

"You told me to move, so I did." He shrugged as if his only thought had been obedience. "You were in the way. Warned you I was no good with a blade." Gendry stood over her, his voice playful, but with some concern hovering on his face. "Have I hurt you?"

Arya smiled and shook her head. "Aren't you going to help me up, you brute?" Satisfied he hadn't done any damage, Gendry laughed in her face, "Give you a helping hand in your revenge? I don't think so." And he walked away, leaving Arya rather flushed, still sitting in the dirt. Sansa was right. He _was_ strong.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lied! I'm gonna have to stop saying what's in the next chapter because clearly, I have no control over this! Jonsa scene was moved to the NEXT chapter because it wasn't finished. Hopefully I'll post later this week.
> 
> Also, I posted a one shot, internal monologue from Sansa's POV during s7. Not Jonsa, so it isn't part of my series. Whenever you are in the mood, please check it out! 
> 
> As always, thank you for all the love for the story. You make me so happy! ❤️


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was confused for a moment, before he realized she had led him to the beginning of the Godswood. "Take me to the heart tree."

 

 

It was Sansa who succeeded in pulling Jon from his room at last. With his new mobility his world of one room had shrunk until it could no longer contain him, and one morning when Sansa came to his room to write a few ravens, he couldn't stop pacing. He heard her sigh, and apparently give up on her papers, as he heard the scrape of her chair along the floor. He heard the soft rustling of her furs as she resettled them on her shoulders, then she was rummaging around for something in the chest of drawers along the wall before she came to him and placed his own great cloak around his shoulders.

"It has been odd to not see you in your furs" she said, slipping her hands behind him as she pulled the leather straps around his back and fastened them, the direwolves secured once more across his chest as firmly as they were stamped into the leather.

He couldn't speak or even think of anything he might say. She was very nearly holding him in her arms, and while he had hugged her before and touched her face and hands since returning to Winterfell, having her dress him, even if it was just his cloak, felt like an unprecedented intimacy. He mumbled something about being able to do it himself, but he made no movement to, because, without her saying it, he could feel her happiness that he was once again dressed as a Stark man rather than invalid, and he was powerless to do anything but submit to her whim. "Brings back memories?"

"Yes."

He heard her smile, even in that one word. "Remembering how we were insulted and rejected by the Northern Lords, lived in tents pitched in snow and mud, rode for days on end...it's pleasing to you?" He asked, incredulous.

"No." She was running her hands along the fur now draped over his shoulders. It was a sensation not unlike being petted, he had often stroked his horse so, Sansa probably ran her fingers through Ghost's coat in a similar way. Once again he was speechless, too preoccupied with breathing normally to consider anything else. Finally, the fur was smoothed to her satisfaction. "No, I was thinking of trying to convince little Lyanna Mormont that the Starks had returned. Standing before that little girl, trying to feel like it was true, that we were house Stark. She was just a child, and yet I felt like I was playing dress up in mother's gowns and you in fa--you in my father's furs."

He noted her self correction, and was grateful. It made it somewhat easier for him when they spoke correctly about their relation to each other and other relations, as confusing as it sometimes was. "All for sixty-two men."

"It isn't always about numbers Jon, not about the significance of a house, or the title of a man that makes him great."

"Easy for you to say" he huffed, trying to suppress a smile, "You have the title and brought the men."

"And it is fortunate for you that I did." She didn't laugh, but he knew her eyes had crinkled, she had probably blushed, pleased and surprised as she always was when complimented. She had taken his hand and for a moment he thought she was going to hold it, but then she placed it on her arm and he told himself that it was for the best although he felt quite the opposite. Gently, without asking, she led him to the door.

He wanted to resist, fear of confusion, fear of stumbling or falling, fear of feeling blind in a way he hadn't in his room that he knew so well, filled him. But Sansa was there. She was near him, her body not pressed to his side, but close enough their shoulders would brush as they walked, close enough that his fingers could cling as lightly or as tightly as he wanted to her rough sleeve, if they weren't too distracted by the fact that it was Sansa he was holding on to. She was so near that he could smell the remnants of the bright sunlight in her hair, the cool air on her chilled skin from when she had been out supervising workmen before coming to see him. While he was distracted she had maneuvered him to the door, before he could fully process what she was doing and articulate any objection, she was leading him down the corridor.

Her steps were neither too long nor minced, not too slow or too quick, she strolled leisurely with him, as if they frequently meandered so. It was probably their similarity in height that allowed her to match his pace so well, probably the fact that while his whole body had initially gone rigid with the stress of such an excursion, somehow he found he enjoyed being led around by Sansa, and he hoped she did not read every one of his emotions on his face, and tried to silence the voice telling him she most certainly was.

He was sure he heard Sam talking to someone and instantly stop and follow behind them, and then he was breathing the fresh air for himself, not from the safety of his room, but in the full wildness of it, and the sun, unfiltered by screens was on his cheeks. They stopped as he struggled not to gasp, for while all was still darkness, he was forcibly reminded of the forms of the buildings they were walking away from, the blue sky above, the great grey walls of the castle, the white snow that occasionally still fell, searching for a place to safely land. The colors that must now surround him dazzled his mind, the sounds of the castle, muted before, now rose in a wild cacophony, each striving to more loudly cry out the song of the living.

"Take me on a walk, Jon" Sansa said, removing his hand from her arm to loop hers through his, pulling even more closely into his side, her unfamiliar weight added to his arm grounding him, as if she depended on him to assist her, as if _he_ should now guide _her_. He was confused for a moment, before he realized she had led him to the beginning of the Godswood. "Take me to the heart tree."

This was a path Jon knew better than he knew his own room, he had stumbled along this route since he was a toddler at his Uncle's heels. He knew every rise and fall, flattened and wrinkled part of this stretch of earth, and his feet walked it well, even while that voice within screamed that he would surely fall. Sansa's fingers so delicately pressed or pulled on his arm he hardly noticed how she gently guided him, lost as he was in the affection in her grasp. Her care for him never ceased to surprise him, his feelings the same response he always had to her touch.

They did not make it to the tree that first walk. Sam who had faithfully and discretely followed had to step forward and help Sansa assist a tired Jon back to his room before they did, but most days Sansa now requested Jon take a walk with her instead of staying in his room, and if she asked, Jon always said yes. He still wore a cloth over his eyes, to protect them from sunlight or others from the sight of his scars, Sansa wasn't sure, but she said nothing. If it was a comfort to him it was important to her. Soon she had made several cloths of much finer material for him to wear so, carefully hemmed, and silently left on the table by his bed.

Jon became surer and relearned the castle with his ears and feet, and somehow Sansa had him eating in the great hall, sitting at the table beside her, contriving meals that would be easiest for him to eat as he adjusted to dining by feel before an audience. Before long, Jon was able to navigate the Keep by himself and joined his cousins in the great room for all his meals, and once Jon seemed at ease with the arrangement, Sansa finally began serving foods other than bread, cheese, and pie.

Jon had heard Gendry teasing Arya about never eating pie, and even though he asked about the jests, Arya refused to explain why she wouldn't partake, a refusal which was promptly followed by a strange exclamation from Gendry, and then, not another word from him about pies. Jon wondered that the man hadn't already learned to let Arya be, but Gendry seemed pleased with whatever violence Arya had graced him with, and while he said not a word, he was clearly unrepentant as he proceeded to eat with such exaggerated sounds that he succeeded in finally making Arya join him in laughter.

Life returned to Winterfell in many ways. As the deep snows melted and roads became more passible, Northern Lords came with greater frequency, deliberations and arguments seemingly never ending, much to Sansa's quiet annoyance. Feasts were had, nothing grand like the days of their childhood, supplies still not sufficient to permit it, but that was ignored in the presence of such boisterous celebrations. The wars were over and the relief could not be contained. Jon did not always join his family for these festivities, finding it just as infuriating an activity to brood in his room and imagine the flirtations between eligible Lords and Sansa as it would be to sit in the room and witness it with his own ears.

He had known stepping beyond the boundaries of his room would change things, and it had. Now that he left his room, Sansa did not join him there often, not that he was ever alone for long. No, Arya came to him to complain how annoying Gendry continued to be, how he was always popping up to harass her, and then she would wander off to find him, telling Jon she had to inform Gendry of his transgressions.

Gendry often came upon him and immediately launched into vague statements about women, pestering him with assertions and questions all of which were clearly not about women, but a woman, and most certainly, a woman that could only be Arya. Jon generally grunted, rarely if ever making a response beyond noises, and desperately tried to consistently act unaware of their mutual preoccupation. This was a feat not easily accomplished, but it didn't really matter, as Gendry and Arya weren't paying all that much attention to him anyway.

In the evenings some or all of them might gather in a solar, often Sansa's, if she was too tired or occupied somewhere else, they besieged the one that Jon had used before the Great War. Frequently on those evenings, Gilly allowed Little Sam to tumble with Jon on furs placed on the floor, as long as he regularly assured her he was alright, and Sam oversaw them with encouraging words to his toddler. "Jump on him! Pull his hair, don't be shy!" Gilly scolded Sam, but never felt the compulsion to extricate Jon no matter how tangled his hair became.

If Sansa was there she would at some point swoop in to tickle Little Sam, never at first, her hands were always busy with showing Gilly a new stitch or some embroidery or mending of her own, but inevitably, as if she simply couldn't help herself, she'd kneel down on the floor to make the little boy laugh and Jon would more often than not take the opportunity to grab her before she could escape and feign to tickle her. Although he never dared make good on his threat, she laughed as if he had, and thankfully, he remained unaware of the smirks Arya and Gendry exchanged at his expense, and could not see the satisfied smiles Gilly and Sam shared as Sam put his arm around his wife and sweetly kissed her forehead. The sight of love in others making him all the more grateful for hers.

Even if Jon wasn't with Sansa, she was always present. When not in a room she filled it, not with the same blend of vivaciousness and orneriness that Arya bounced between, but in simple ways. The food they ate, the clothes they wore, the people who were gathered before the fire who all felt like family, it all so insistently hinted at her, her decisions that led them there, that the very life they were leading was seemingly created by her. Jon told himself to stop, that she must not become the center of his world, but it was far too late for that; she was the essence of his life.

No sooner was Jon independently maneuvering the castle than Sansa asked him to join her in meetings with Lords and hearings for the small folk, and although he insisted he sit off along the wall, and she agreed, every day he discovered she had moved his chair an inch closer to her own, until one day he told her he knew what she was doing and she might as well just put his chair where she wanted it in the first place. She laughed and happily pulled his chair across the room, placing it right next to hers. "You belong here, Jon, with me." He told himself not to, that his parentage was the first sign he wasn't meant to have ever sat at the high table, his bringing the Dragon Queen to Winterfell the second, his installing her as ruler the third. He told himself that he certainly lost every right to such a position when he flew off on a dragon, leaving his family behind. He told himself not to believe her, but he wanted it to be true so badly, and when Sansa said he belonged, he couldn't _help_ believing her.

The next morning on their walk he took her to the godswood as she had taken him that first day he ventured from his room. He was strong enough now, and the air was pleasantly cool, the winter chill having given way to the spring sun, and they finally reached the heart tree. He worried it would feel like a regression to the past, walking back into memories and feelings hard to bear. Instead, with Sansa describing the red of the leaves, with her laughing as she threw a handful of them into his face, with her sighing happily as they sat side by side and dipped their fingers into the hot spring, with her warning him if he even thought of splashing her he would find himself taking a bath in it, Jon thought it did not at all feel like falling backwards, but rather like finding the beginning at last. Not the beginning of what _had_ happened, but of what _could_ happen, given time.

Sansa gave him that time.

They visited the crypts, an experience somehow both easier and harder then it had ever been before. The truth confusing and clarifying so much of what he knew of his family, of himself, that he was irresistibly drawn there, conflicted and then always comforted by Sansa beside him, slipping her fingers into his hand as they stood within their memories of the dead.

They climbed the battlements to stand in the snow flurries as they used to; they followed the path to the heart tree often, side by side. When the weather and Sansa's obligations permitted, they explored the Wolfswood, letting Ghost run free only for him to return and try to tackle Jon to the ground, more exuberant and playful at Jon finally joining him beyond the walls of the castle than he had ever been, even as a pup. Sansa steadfastly refused to intervene even though she was skilled at coaxing Ghost to her bidding, "You have to find a way to get him off you yourself, Jon. I'm not rescuing any fair maidens today. Try singing. Your voice may scare him away."

In their walks, they tread over weathered stones, dirt packed down by the passage of years and countless feet, saplings careless of where they sprung up from the earth, and fresh snowflakes that Sansa more than once scooped up to offer to Jon's lips. The unexpected recurrence of girlish fancy unfailingly provoked a startled laugh from him before he shrugged, obliged, and silently cursed his boyish blushes. They stumbled across paths neither had traveled before, and when they didn't happen upon any, they created new ones, together. 

 

 

 


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arya allowed him some time to brood which he mistook for her accepting defeat. Instead, she kicked at his boot with hers. "I trained while blind."

 

 

 

Arya was much more boisterous than Sansa in her help, and much more determined to have things her way. "You must still spar, Jon" she insisted, dragging him out to the practice yard.

Sam made horrified noises, sputtered out reasons why that was a horrible idea, but Arya ignored him and wheeled Bran out to offer his assurances that no permanent damage would be done, and then motioned for Sam to take charge of his escape.

Jon was convinced Bran muttered the words because Arya begged him to, not because he had any revelations to indicate the outcome one way or the other, but he could never be quite sure with Bran, and knew it was pointless to try to discern whether Arya was telling him the truth or not.

"Even the bird agrees." Arya said.

"He's not a bird. He's called the three eyed--nevermind." None of them really understood what Bran was anyway. No point in arguing over that too. Jon was uncertain if he would or wouldn't be swayed. His sword was once a part of him, and he felt strange no longer wearing Longclaw, but he was done with fighting, whatever drive in him that fueled the fight had died in his first life, Sansa and then saving the North the only cause worth picking up a sword again. When he fell, he had thought to never raise his hand again.

Arya allowed him some time to brood which he mistook for her accepting defeat. Instead, she kicked at his boot with hers. " _I_ trained while blind."

"How did I have the misfortune to go blind while part of the _one_ family in all of Westoros who would view it as barely even an inconvenience? Your training was while you were blind? Bloody hell!" A sound that was a mixture of laugh and groan escaped him as he turned to her, as if he could learn her secrets as he used to, with steady eyes looking on a bright child's face. But he no longer had his eyes; she no longer had that face.

She could feel how badly he wanted to ask more about that training and what it had done to her, but he didn't. He always let her say what she wanted when she wanted. In turn, she had permitted Sansa to coddle him, waited while he took his leisurely walks, allowed him to transition back into their lives how he chose. He was happy, certainly, but there was a streak of restlessness, so much milder than her own yet still present, and it was time he expelled it.

He hadn't offered his hand, nevertheless, she took it, and guided him to the practice area she and Gendry had prepared. She was far more willful than Sam, Bran, or Jon, so she had known she would succeed, but she was careful to make sure that Sansa was occupied elsewhere. Sansa wasn't _overbearingly_ motherly, but her nurturing instincts would never approve of this.

Sansa would certainly have approved even _less_ if she had witnessed Arya's version of gradually reintroducing Jon to fighting.

At Arya's orders Gendry had formed a ring with barrels so that Jon could wander freely until hip or toe collided with their makeshift barrier. Arya stood still, allowing him to map it out in his mind, tense, waiting for her. He bumped into the barrels a few times then seemed to have a feel for it, but soon Arya could see him comfortable enough with their arena that his attention was on her.

Arya was capable of moving silently, so although she was still quiet, Jon knew she was purposefully making noises so that he could track her movements. She came up behind him, but he spun and waved his weapon in her general direction before she could pounce. She dragged her wooden sword on the ground, kicked into the dirt with each step so that he heard, and swung her sword. His own knocked against it as he moved it wildly in the air, his movements clumsy. She laughed, moved away, sang out directions as she came again and playfully lunged, pleased when he met several successive blows and startled when he dealt one of his own. She should have known all those years of fighting had given him instincts he didn't lose even without sight, even with a body that still didn't function as it used to.

"Next time we're making our arena larger" she decided. Looking around guiltily in case Sansa had emerged. She hadn't, so Arya returned to their game. Pushing Jon by attacking faster, moving away and making him come to her, then striking, finally reigning down blow after blow upon him until he complained, "Is this really fair? You can see, and I can't."

"But Jon, you're so much taller and stronger than me. Isn't a duel between us more sporting now?"

He tried not to laugh at her and succeeded when she hit him on the shoulder with a great deal more force than he would have expected from her small frame wielding a wooden sword, and then she rapped him on the knuckles, startling him into dropping his sword. "Forfeit! I forfeit."

Arya wasn't winded, yet she plunked herself down in the dirt regardless, slamming her sword down beside her, and Jon, who was breathing heavily, smiled, sitting and panting next to her, not having anticipated quite how much he would enjoy sparring after so long, finding it settled something within him to once again be practicing in a Winterfell courtyard, to at last be doing so with Arya.

Of course, such exercise was not without its cost and his arms and legs burned from the exertion. Jon could hear Gendry returning the barrels to their places, retrieving the swords, successfully hiding the evidence of their entertainment. All he could do was sit and struggle to return to breathing normally, but there was pleasure in that struggle, energy in this particularly pain.

"You seem so... _happy_." Arya noted, as if this were a great puzzlement to her.

Jon laughed, "Should I not be?"

"Your leg still gives a little, sometimes it almost drags, and your arm will never be right again--"

"I probably wouldn't even be able to lift Longclaw" Jon agreed.

"And your blind, yet--" she looked at his sweaty face adorned with a smile, "you're the happiest I have ever seen you. You weren't even this happy when I was a child."

She was asking a question Jon did not particularly want to answer, but he could give her much of the truth even if he did not give it all. "I thought my family was dead, all of you, and now I have you back. I have Sansa and Bran. I thought I'd never be free to come home, and I am here. How could I not be happy?"

"But it's...how is this better than what we had before? Why do you smile now even though you--"

"Yes, I'm blind. What does it mean? I wanted a home and family. That's what I have _always_ wanted, and now I have it. I shouldn't, I shouldn't even be alive, but I have everything I could have asked for. How could I possibly be _un_ happy?"

"You have everything you ever wanted?"

Jon's face grew a little more heated than it had been a moment before, and he hoped it would be blamed on the exercise. He didn't answer Arya, and she seemed to accept his silence.

She stood up and pulled him along with her, guiding him to the door to reenter the castle. Her voice became very low, as if she didn't want anyone else to hear what they had been speaking of, "Everything you ever wanted is just right _here_ , isn't it?"

She touched his shoulder to stop him and he then knew why she had whispered and what she had been saying, because she had deposited him directly in front of Sansa.

A raised eyebrow and tightened lips informed Arya in spite of their efforts Sansa knew what they had been doing, so Arya attempted to look innocent and winsome which was effective in some form or fashion for Sansa gave a _most_ unladylike snort. She of course was not fooled by Arya, but she remained unaware of why Jon was suddenly _very_ red, and stammering out what she assumed were explanations for why he thought fighting was a reasonable activity.

"I haven't anything to say, Jon. It seems to me like Arya taught you whatever lesson it was she intended you to learn." She patted his shoulder a little harder than necessary and Jon winced, knowing a bruise was forming, also knowing that Sansa suspected it too. "Oh, I hope that didn't hurt too much" she said cheerfully. She looked at Arya, "It's nearly time to eat. Please don't come to table looking like _that_."

Arya happily whistled as she deserted Jon to his fate, relieved that her sister was being rational and blaming Jon for his poor judgment. After all, Arya couldn't have _forced_ Jon to spar against his will. She went to make herself presentable for their meal, yelling at Gendry that he was always so filthy that he needed to as well, satisfied that while Sansa might not approve, she seemed to have absolved her of responsibility.

Sansa's hand still rested on Jon's shoulder, and between that and the adrenaline rush from exercise and the giddiness of Arya's persistent pushing him towards Sansa, Jon was filled with the nearly irresistible urge to make a clean breast of it all, but he didn't, knowing that he couldn't possibly burden her so. The wrongness of asking for more was appalling to him, and yet, was it wrong if that's what Sansa wanted? And if Arya's behavior meant anything, couldn't he assume that Arya would be pleased? And if Arya was pleased didn't that mean saying something would make Sansa happy? He thought it did, but how could he _know_?

Sansa's hand was assessing the damage to his shoulder, a little less carefully than she might have, and her fingers probed in exactly the wrong spot, or right spot, depending on how you looked at it, making him wince yet again.

"Who would have thought that fighting Arya would leave you black and blue? How shocking."

He placed his hand on hers, to stop her from continuing to worry over him, to reassure her, also, to hold it in place. "There's no saying no to Arya."

Sansa laughed softly, as if he had made a fine witticism, and he felt himself weakening. He should speak, but he had such guilt over the thought of taking something he wanted when it might involve a sacrifice on Sansa's part that it sickened him to think it. It made him remember that she was the true Stark, and yet he had been proclaimed king. And there was fear, not of rejection, that he could bear, humiliation was not unknown to him. It was the thought of forcing Sansa to do the rejecting, that was a fear he could not face.

There was more, a deeper fear, the one that ran beside dark memories, occasionally appearing during the day, never when Sansa was with him, but if he found himself alone, he felt the rush of air, the scent of death painted on pale skin, luminous eyes that watched him, the thought that the dragon was waiting filled him. He was afraid it would come for him, or summon him South again.

He should not speak to Sansa, not knowing if he would be permitted to remain. The Dragon Queen had yet to marry, and word would reach her eventually that the White Wolf had awakened, that he lived again. He wondered if she would reclaim him, knew that there was no refusing if she did. Perhaps he was too broken and of no interest to anyone save his family now, but he remembered Jorah's warning, " _Dragons don't understand the difference between what is theirs and what isn't,_ " and he could see her eyes, hear the hiss of her breath when she said her words, " _I will take what is mine with fire and blood_."

Jon remained where he was, still holding Sansa's hand, finding one fear nearly adequate, the two combined more than sufficient to convince him there was nothing to be said. He must wait, at least for now. He wondered that Sansa had not kept him a prisoner in his room to protect him, but that would have been a futile mission now with Lords coming and going. Everyone with uncertain loyalties, looking for ways to ingratiate themselves with the volatile Queen. There was nowhere to hide from a dragon.

"Jon? Are you alright?"

His silence had concerned Sansa so he offered her a smile. "I'm fine." He released her, intending to make his own way, thinking to brood in the peace of his room, but she took his elbow. "Oh no, you are not escaping me now. If you are well, you're eating with us."

He allowed Sansa to draw him into the corridor, listening to her talk over the events of the day as he so often did, finding that under the flow of her thoughts he relaxed in spite of himself. He wondered why he had ever left his room, because he had recognized yet another fear, absurd as it was, he absolutely _dreaded_ the thought of Arya knowing for certain what she hinted at was true, and teasing him all the more. He'd rather she drag him back into the arena and whale away than have to endure _that_.

 

 

 

 


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Gilly was lost to the girls now, remembering something that meant more than admiration, more than affection, more than, Arya didn't even know what is was more than, only that it was more. She looked at Sansa and thought it was likely Sansa understood entirely."

 

Spending time with Gilly and Little Sam was, unexpectedly to Arya, a favorite way for her to relax. Gilly's attitude was a nice stepping stone between hers and Sansa's, they could both laugh over Gilly's frank opinions, yet, now as a Lady herself, she respected niceties more than Arya, and could talk endlessly of all the boring things that occupied Sansa's mind day in and day out.

Of course, not _all_ their conversations were about providing for refugees, the practicalities of running a castle, what was expected of a Lady and _why_ , Gilly liked to tease Sansa with Arya's encouragement, and now with Gendry at Winterfell, Sansa was intent on returning the favor.

"Gendry seemed to enjoy watching the dancing last night" Sansa noted innocently, tickling Little Sam's foot as he played on the furs before the hearth. "Too bad a certain Lady wouldn't dance with him."

Gilly snorted, licking her lip as she attempted a new stitch Sansa had been showing her on a sampler.

"I'm not a Lady" ground out Arya between her teeth. Even the slightest hint of teasing driving her to distraction. "You're one to talk, a certain someone has nearly stopped coming down to the great hall all together."

"That's hardly my fault" Sansa responded quietly, making faces at the child in an attempt to make him to laugh.

"Do you want children of your own?" Gilly interrupted the sisters, watching Sansa a little too intently for her question to be meaningless.

"Yes, some day, a great many children" Sansa's cheeks turned pink, and not from the fire's heat. Girlish daydreams so long bitter taunts now seemed sweet, dreams still, but so nearly possible she almost thought that one day they could be.

"I want as many children as I can have" agreed Gilly.

The two women looked at Arya, waiting for her addition, "What for? Little Sam is sweet, but any more than one girl and one boy seems...redundant."

Sansa and Gilly stared at each other before laughing, "You'll understand when you're older" suggested Gilly.

"Or maybe never." Offered Sansa, always careful to never hem in Arya with actions or words.

"You have to find a man first if you are wanting a family" said Gilly, sweetly.

"Oh, Sansa has a man, if either of them ever felt like saying anything about it" mocked Arya.

"Jon will say something when he's ready."

"I didn't even say his name" Arya protested as she picked up the boy and tossed him into the air, all faux innocence. Little Sam laughed his pleasure at Arya's exuberant play, grabbing her hair when she held him on her hip, "No, no, we pull Jon's pretty curls, not my hair" she corrected the child.

"Maybe," Gilly kept her eyes fixed on her needlework, but Sansa knew she was speaking to her, "maybe you have to be the one to speak first."

Sansa flushed an even deeper red. Could she? She thought of Jon's quiet thoughtfulness in meetings. How he waited for her to ask his opinion before he gave it. How his jaw clenched when her decisions did not align with his preference, but he'd nod, acknowledging her right to do as she wished. How inevitably, such a small smile would cross his face she didn't know if she had seen it or simply knew his mind so well that she didn't need an external sign to tell her he was amused.

She thought of him, always there, the most reliable person in her life since her father. Even when he was away at Dragonstone, even when he went South with Daenerys, she wanted to doubt, to question, to fear, but Jon was Jon. Always loyal and honorable and so loving she never could. Hadn't she seen he loved her? Hadn't he shown her time and again? Hadn't he told her in more meaningful ways than words? Respected her, listened to her, protected her when no other could? But could she tell him?

She had survived being a prisoner in the Red Keep, survived Ramsay, survived the wars, all because she had covered herself in words and smiles and pretended she was what they told she was. That was never an option with Jon. Jon had seen through her from the beginning, even if she had wanted, she could not have fooled him. And she had not wanted to. She had not wanted anything but understanding and trust between them, and that was what they had.

She had clung to what little remained of her armor, containing herself as much as she was able now, and it was so very little. She had only remnants of herself that he did not yet know. Under the cover of her facade she had been broken and slowly repaired; her perfect self had been discarded for her real self. To remove this last protection, as much as she told herself it was hardly a risk at all, to place her dearest wish and greatest hope in another's hands, even hands she trusted as much as she trusted Jon's, she did not know that she could.

Arya and Gilly were waiting, concerned that their usual teasing had stunned Sansa into silence. Sansa stuttered out words to remove the sudden discomfort. "That's...it would not be...it's hardly how things...not appropriate."

"I don't know what's what here. You have strange ways, but I don't think you need to make Jon suffer for the sake of some notion you have floating around your head about who needs to say what and when and how. I slept with Sam for the first time right after I was nearly raped."

Arya and Sansa both paused their play to stare at Gilly, who shrugged, acknowledging the affect of her startling statement, yet remained unashamed of it. "I was just...I loved him, and I knew he loved me, but my Sam's not a fighter. Not like Jon" her eyes on Sansa, "not like your Gendry" she said to Arya. "But Sam, that night he was so brave" Gilly was lost to the girls now, remembering something that meant more than admiration, more than affection, more than, Arya didn't even know what is was more than, only that it was _more_. She looked at Sansa and thought it was likely Sansa understood entirely.

"He was so brave the entire time I knew him, from the very beginning, and he had saved us, kept saving us, without asking for anything, because my Sam never would." Gilly stabbed her needle into her work and set it aside, holding her arms out for her son so that she might hold him. "I wanted to be with him, and I was tired of waiting." She looked at Sansa. "Sometimes we don't have to wait."

Arya felt fidgety, nervous, just the slightest bit happy, even though she wasn't sure why. She thought of Gendry. She wondered how patient he was, if he minded waiting.

Sansa stared at the fire instead of her sister or friend. "Jon is the best man I know."

Gilly nodded, "And I think Sam is the best man I know."

Then they looked at Arya, who sighed, "Gendry's okay."

\---

That night Sam and Gilly lay in their bed, Sam's eyes were closed, too exhausted to keep them open any longer, Gilly's hand rubbing his chest too soothing for him to resist the call to sleep, but then she started tapping her fingers instead of her relaxing gesture, and then she was speaking. "Sam, I think you need to give Jon a push."

He groaned. "Please, no talking. I'm so tired. I thought seeing to the refugees with Maester Wolkan was exhausting, but Jon now roams everywhere around the castle grounds as if he isn't blind. I think he sometimes forgets. You know he's started sparing with Arya? You should have seen his body after _that_. And no matter what scratches or bruises he collects, he just keeps on as if he's not mortal. Maybe I would think I was a god too if death wasn't enough to keep me from living. If falling off a dragon can't kill you, I guess you'll never believe there's danger in sword play with a girl, no matter how many people she's killed." Sam's yawn didn't hide his smile from Gilly. He was profoundly pleased to be aggravated in such a manner, "Starks are an unbearable lot, aren't they? Wild like their wolves, and as deadly."

As if she hadn't heard his objection to more conversation Gilly continued. "Jon is just so obvious about it, everyone knows, but he won't say anything because he's too good and honorable, and Sansa doesn't want to say anything because she is trying to be 'proper,' whatever she means by that, and Arya teasing them isn't effective and I tried to tell Sansa to--"

Sam was no longer quite so sleepy. "What did you tell her?"

Gilly continued, ignoring Sam's discomfort with the topic. "I just said she doesn't need to wait for him. I said I didn't wait for you too--"

Sam's face blanched, he sat up in bed, "You didn't tell Lady Sansa about... _us_? Did you?"

Gilly's face was answer enough and Sam fell back to the bed and tried suffocating himself with a pillow. Being a married man, being a Lord had not entirely erased the feelings that had grown for the majority of his life, the shyness, his bumbling ways, feeling like a fool were deeply ingrained, and the thought of his wife having _that_ kind of a conversation was more humiliation that he could bear.

"Sam, it's not as if women don't talk of their husbands. All women do."

"All women--you don't, you've never--my mother?" Sam's voice was slightly higher with every utterance and his face so red, Gilly did begin to worry that he'd do himself harm.

"All I said was, she should talk to Jon, but she isn't forward, and with Jon's diffidence--"

"That's a good word, Gilly. What are you reading now?" Sam asked, always impressed when she slipped words from her books into their conversations, hoping to derail her from her goal.

"Thank you, but you aren't distracting me."

Sam sighed. He should have known Gilly would see through his efforts. "They're adults, they'll figure it out. It isn't my place to--"

"You are a Lord, married with a child, and Jon's best friend. If it isn't your place, it's no one's place." Now Gilly was sitting up, her vehemence shaking the bed, but she calmed herself. "We are leaving soon, and I don't want to come back several years from now and see the same dance of avoidance going on. Arya might just be moved to violence if they play coy too much longer."

That retrieved a laugh from Sam, who was breathing more normally now, Gilly's advice a challenge and always a pleasure for him. "It isn't my place to tell Jon what to do."

Gilly studied her husband, dropped a kiss to his lips, and lay down next to him again, pulling his arm around her shoulder. "You're a wise, learned man, Samwell, but sometimes I worry you don't know it. There's a lot more than treatments you could offer Jon, if you cared to."

 

 

 


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Surprisingly to Sam, Jon and Gendry waited expectantly, not a hint of amusement from either of them. Sam had half expected some resistance to him asserting himself as the knowledgeable one and took it as a sign of their compete incompetence on the matter that both seemed eager to hear his advice. "You poor bastards are desperate, aren't you?"

 

Sam, Jon, and Gendry found it natural to sit before the fire and drink together. Ghost sprawled at Jon's feet, a mountain of white fur that was, under Sansa's influence, increasingly domesticated, often resting his head on an unsuspecting victim's knee, unknowingly terrifying countless guests with his quest for a scratch. Occasionally Jon reached out to stroke the creature as he and Sam reminisced over their time as the Night's Watch, amusing Gendry with their tales, Gendry offering his own thoughts of his journey beyond the Wall with Jon. To Gendry it felt of brotherhood he had never known, to Sam and Jon, a painful reminder of brothers they had lost.

"This is the life our fathers should have had, drinking at the hearth with each other. Who would want to leave this?" Gendry stretched his hands out to the fire, at ease as if this was how they had spent years of their life doing so.

"What would one do with seven kingdoms anyhow?" Jon responded, agreeing completely.

"Don't ask me, I'm just a bastard." Gendry laughed into his ale.

"Did Sansa send you away before?"

"Yes, apparently she didn't want me to be roasted." Gendry laughed and drank again. "She told me to go and then come back. I wasn't banished."

Jon swirled the ale in his mug, "She's smarter than she lets on."

"Pretty too."

Jon could hear Gendry grinning, but agreed anyway, "Aye."

"She has red hair" Sam added, quietly. Gendry missed the implication, Jon understanding it too quickly.

Gendry, not one to be too far behind, glanced at Jon's flushed cheeks and then promptly declared it beautiful. Sam agreed, adding "The Freedolk say it's kissed by fire, lucky. But who doesn't like red hair? It's many a man's favorite."

"Too bad about that" the blacksmith chortled.

"What?" Jon asked, forcing himself to not flee in humiliation.

"Now you'll have even more men to be jealous of. You should see 'em dance with her."

Jon's hands clenched a little tighter around his cup, but he held his tongue.

Wanting to goad him a little more Sam added "They stand too close. And their hands--"

"I didn't ask." Jon was glad he'd had the sense to avoid many of the feasts. He didn't even want to know about it, let alone have to sit there and listen to men offering themselves to Sansa.

Gendry laughed loudly, "Don't worry. I keep an eye on them as does Arya. No one hides anything from her."

"Arya and you--"

Jon can hear Gendry shuffle his feet, gulp his ale, suddenly uncomfortable with their ease and openness.

"We're friends."

"I hope not. We're friends and if you think about me the same way you think about Arya, I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you."

"She's--I'm a bastard."

"Arya is no lady."

"Aye." Gendry did his best impersonation of Jon's Northern accent.

"You could be with her, marry her, live here, I'd like that. Sansa wants it too."

"I don't think--I don't know if she'll ever want to marry. If she'd ever--"

"If there's a man for her, you're it."

They sat quietly for a moment, Jon hoping Gendry took him seriously. Gendry not sure what to think.

"Did you ever love a wild thing, Jon?"

Jon thought of Ygritte. _She was taunting him while he was trying to find his way back to his brothers. They were climbing the Wall, he was terrified, and she was determined. They were in the cave together, the one she wanted to go back to._ "Yes."

"How do you love them?"

_Ygritte's unbrushed hair that smelled of smoke and sweat. Her laughter when she teased him for being a virgin. Her threats to kill him if he left her. The arrows in his back. How she raised her bow one last time. He had smiled, then she was dead._ Aye, he'd loved her, but that love was a violence done to her and to him.

He thought of Daenerys. _Her face soft and open, so innocent, even after killing Sam's father and brother. "I haven't given you permission to go." She wouldn't let him go home to protect his family, but she sent him North of the Wall to win her a truce. Standing on the beach, telling him she cared before he left her. A sickness seeped through him, knowing where it would lead. He woke to her sitting on his bed. "My dragon", she said. "My Uncle," he thought. They got a worthless promise from Cersei. Daenerys summoned him to her chambers, and without a choice he did the most dishonorable thing he could have done; he went. She told him they would marry, insisting they would go South and take back their family's throne. She'd begged him to reestablish their family's house. "We can be extraordinary together." And then she was burning them, burning them all. Bend the knee, bend the knee, bend the knee._ She did not know how to love, and he could not teach her.

He thought of Sansa. _She was wearing his cloak, drinking from his cup, telling him they must retake their home. "I'll do it myself if I have to." She said she would die before going back to Ramsay, he didn't want to come back to a life without her. She was looking at him across a field of battle, thousands of knights riding North for her, so that she could save him. She was grabbing his arm, begging him listen, listen, listen._

_She was watching him ride away._  
  
_She was hugging him when he returned._

_She was saying goodbye to him, watching him fly South._

_She was holding his hand, singing to him, touching his hair, walking with him. Constantly, continually, she was pulling him into life, even when he had been content to sit it out._

Jon cleared his throat, "The same way you love anything else. Anger, frustration, fear." _Her hair that was so soft against his cheek when she would lean over him to adjust a bandage._ "Patiently, passionately." _Her hands that never hurt him, only healed._ "With everything, you love with _everything_."

"What happens in the end?" Gendry asked earnestly.

"There's no telling with a Northern girl. They're all too strong to be controlled, too wild to be corralled."

"Then what do you do?"

"Drink?"

They both followed Jon's advice, finding these waters murky.

"You don't hate me now--do you?" The large man seemed suddenly timid.

"Because you want Arya?" Jon laughed at the poor boy. "You pining over a tiny assassin makes the fact she's my little--my cousin entertaining." Jon meant it, although he added, "You could have told me though, that you knew her. When we met, you could have mentioned it."

"I dunno," Gendry casually patted his back, "waiting until you were half maimed and blind seems to have been the safer option."

Sam had been silently listening to their conversation, ale in hand, but he finally set his untouched drink on the floor and interrupted. "Not to intrude on your not-yet-but-want-to-be-brothers-by-marriage plan, and your mutual determination to be utterly pathetic--"

Jon smiled, "You have some commiserating to do too Sam?"

Gendry raised his tankard to solute their common pain, but stopped when Sam shook his head.

" _I'm_ the one sitting here who's married. Gilly's the only woman I've ever loved, and I want to be with her." Forstalling any teasing at such a declaration of his devotion he pushed on. "I'm not a bookish coward anymore. "I'm a Lord in my own right. I have a mother and sister and bannerman of my own. Gilly and I have a son, we're a family, and the both of you could stand to hear from someone who's lived what you two are pining for."

Surprisingly to Sam, Jon and Gendry waited expectantly, not a hint of amusement from either of them. Sam had half expected some resistance to him asserting himself as the knowledgeable one and took it as a sign of their compete incompetence on the matter that both seemed eager to hear his advice. "You poor bastards are desperate, aren't you?"

"Aye" they replied in unison, too besotted and just drunk enough not to pretend otherwise.

"Some girls like pretty things, sweet words. Some women like strong men, great deeds. You fools want women who can't be impressed with any of that, they've seen how worthless words are, they've seen the powerful be cruel. They've seen strength and greatness face death and die just like the weak. You don't get to choose how to be worthy, you have to learn how to be worthy. They have needs, desires, and you're to learn the way of it. They don't need you, but if you do that, they could want you."

"When did you learn so much about women, Sam?" Jon asked.

"Not all of us can be as pretty and useless as you two. Some of us have to learn the language and translate it for others."

The men chuckled into their drinks, unabashed at Sam's charges.

"What I mean is" Sam began again, unsure if his pupils could understand in their state, but determined to continue nonetheless, "Gilly was afraid, abused, she needed someone who made her feel safe. I was safe, not just because I fought for her, but because I waited for her to come to me." He looked at Gendry, "You let the wild thing freely choose to love, don't try to lure them into it. Don't pressure or try to convince her. You are not an anchor to hold her in place, not a harness trying to bind her to you. You are stability, someone she knows through and through until she trusts enough to love. Even when you love her, and she loves you, you have to wait. You have to love her enough to let her come to you in her own time."

Jon's voice was low, "We wait?"

Sam and Gendry shared a glance and then a laugh. "Not you Jon. You've done everything you could to be reliable and patient. Sansa has been patient too. You've got to say something, you coward."

Gendry couldn't contain his laughter at this point and meandered off to bed. Sam reminded Jon he was leaving in the morning, the time he'd been away from Horn Hill to see to Jon's care having extended well beyond what he was comfortable with. "I need to go home, and take care of my people."

Jon found Sam's shoulder and squeezed it. "You are my brother, you will always be my brother. I cannot thank you enough--"

"It's a debt that's been paid. What would have have done without you at the Wall? And then you released me to become a maester, and now I'm a Lord. I have a wife and child. None of that would have happened without you protecting me."

Jon did not mention Sam's father or brother, their deaths which he still felt partially responsible for. A great many things would not have happened if it wasn't for him, but he took Sam's words as he intended. "You're a good man, Sam. The best of men."

"You aren't so bad yourself, Jon."

Their drinks were forgotten as they let the fire burn on, neither wanting to say goodbye. Eventually, Sam rose, knocking Jon's head lightly before leaving and muttering, "She does have red hair, doesn't she. _Seven hells_!"

 

 


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was not rough hands or careless actions that began the crack in the ice, it was Jon's caring. Many small splinters had existed before, but now Sansa felt the fracturing of her protective layer, that at last whatever pretense she held onto had been finally pierced. Instead of a fall, it was him pulling her up, always tugging her along, keeping her near. Every day he needed her less, and yet every day he pulled her closer to him.

 

His conversation with Gendry and Sam made Jon think about his place at Winterfell, a subject he typically ignored, alternating between knowing his place was with Sansa and wondering what that meant to her. 

He asked Bran the next day if he should stay or go, if there was somewhere else he should be, but Bran interrupted his questions. "You can take off that last bandage around your eyes. Your wounds are healed and no one cares how you look but you."

"I don't actually know how I look" admitted Jon, "I just know that Arya says I was ghastly. Daenerys was convinced I was dead and wanted to burn my body. Oh, and Arya was nauseated at the sight of me. I'm assuming it doesn't look so bad now." He had worn a bandage at least over his eyes consistently ever since he began leaving his room. He wasn't even sure why, only that it seemed comforting to do so.

"You had already lost faith in her before she began the attack. You had...you wanted to come home." 

Jon opened his mouth, but Bran corrected himself. "You never wanted to leave." 

"No, I never wanted to leave."

"It was foolish of you to go."

"Yes, Bran, I think we agree on that." Jon smiled, still occasionally surprised into amusement by Bran's stoicism. 

"It is a difficult thing to learn your father is not who you think, to feel the burden of protecting a country, but in the future, if something upsets you, talk to Sansa about it.  Give her a chance to speak reason to you."

Jon had a question about that, about Sansa, but he could hear the creaking of Bran’s chair as he leaned back into it, and by how still and silent he became, Jon assumed he was having a vision, so he didn't say anything, and instead made his way back to his room where Sansa was waiting for him. "I was going to ask if you wanted a walk, but you've just taken one." Sansa brushed at leaves that had stuck to Jon’s cloak without him noticing.

"I would like you to help me with something, Sansa." He caught her hand, disrupting her tidying, and led her to his favored chair by the window. Sitting down, he motioned to the wrappings she had neatly hemmed for him. "I don't need these anymore."

Sansa did not speak, of course she would have talked with Sam, of course she would have known everything was healed, but she had waited until he was ready. Her cool hands came to his flushed face, and gently unwound the bandages. There was no gasp or tears, just the brush of her breath along his forehead, the tickle of her fingers on his cheek, a kiss placed on his curls once she had finished. It was the sweetness of the last that made his head fall to her chest, his arms going around her. The need to hold and be hold a reaction he could not control. He could not know what her initial reaction was, but her hands were soon stroking his hair, and her head fell close to his own.

"Is it so awful?" He mumbled. 

"I saw you before you were healed at all. I saw your scarred eyes, this--" her hand traveled the scar from his hairline to his jaw, where his skin had hung off his face until carefully stitched back together. The skin was looser than it should be in some places, too tight across his cheekbone, the scar was thick and not faded enough to forget the violence that brought it. "--it is hardly notable to me. These scars, they're only as significant as you let them become."

"Arya said you were the one to stitch them up." 

"Yes, it was--" her arms pulled a little tighter around him, "unpleasant."

"I don't remember any of it, not really."

"You were delirious or catatonic. You had fevers and then we started giving you milk of the poppy so that you couldn't feel. You were in such pain."

"Worse than when I came out of it?"

"I believe so."

"I cannot tell you what all Sam did, I don't understand his treatments. Gilly calls him a wizard, and he laughs, but I think she is right." Sansa was still stroking his hair, as if it were a natural thing for her to do, and it did feel right, even if Jon was aware that she meant the comforting act in a very different way than he received it. "Jon, I am glad you spar with Arya. Both of you are so happy when you land a blow on the other, bruise each other, get sweaty--" he could see her nose crinkle in his mind, imagine her disgusted look, "--you can sharpen Longclaw under the heart tree as father used to, but you aren't fighting in any more battles. You are home, you are safe, and you are staying here."

Jon sighed. She had found another piece of him that needed tending, one he hadn't fully acknowledged himself. "It was...my way of mattering for so long. I thought I would be a black knight of the Wall, win some honor for myself. I was the best fighter at Castle Black and became Lord Commander because I led in the defense. I took that vow, became 'the shield that guards the realms of men' and I suppose, I believed it. I thought that was who I was. It's hard to put all that aside. I don't even know what that makes me now."

"Now you are a man."

"Just a man?"

"You've never been  _just_  anything."

"I never knew how to be  _anything_. Lord Commander, King, heir to the throne, I wasn't good at any of those versions of myself."

"You are good at being Jon."

"You don't think I need those things, to be someone?" He felt like a fool to say it, asking for her acceptance, grasping at her praise was a greedy act, yet he did it.

"I don't think you  _are_  those things." 

"And? What am I then?"

"Stop fishing for compliments" but she smiled as she said it.

"I'm not fishing, I want to know." He was in earnest now, trying to think through anything he had ever done to win her approval. He knew he sounded like a boy again, but he wanted to know what he was, and he thought Sansa was the only one who had ever really known.

"You're brave, when you left the battle after you'd nearly died and took back Winterfell with a giant and Tormund. I thought you must be the bravest man who ever lived." Her hands had stopped moving, and her breathing had quickened as she remembered. "When I came to the Wall and you picked me up in your arms, fed me, gave me clothes, I thought there was never a more gentle man than you. I was so frightened until I found you, and you didn't just promise to keep me safe, you put your cloak around me and laughed with me and listened to me. Even when you didn't want to listen to me, before we took back Winterfell, and after, when you were King, you still tried to. I don't think any other man would do that."

She couldn't be holding him more tightly, but she was lost to the past, running through memories too painful to be dwelled upon, finding ones that weren't as lethal. "You are strong in many ways. A warrior, strong that way, beating Ramsay. I will never forget watching you beat his face until the mud was red and his face was black, but you are strong in more important ways. Your hands and arms are strong, yes, but you try to do what is right, regardless of what everyone else would do. You insist on it, and you've risked your life for it and died for it. That's a strength like father's, and when I think of who you are, I think of how you have lived your life, how you have honored everything he taught you. He would be proud of the man you are."

Jon was crying by the time she was finished, but Sansa was too, her tears falling into his hair, his wetting her dress where he hid his face. He always hoped Sansa found worth in him, some comfort or value, but to be respected, to be the one who gave instead of always being given to, he had never expected that. Before he could stop himself, in one breath he exclaimed, "May I tell what I think of you? How beautiful you are?"

Sansa involuntarily stiffened. "I have been told many times how beautiful I am. I do not rejoice in it."

"You are that, beautiful, more than beautiful, really," Sansa was holding her breath and he stumbled through his words, hoping to move past her beauty, which had only caused her bitter disappointment, "but you are more than your face, more than your body. I don't need my vision to know you, Sansa. You are much more than what eyes can see." He paused, half laughed, "I suppose that's what you were trying to tell me?"

"Yes," she relaxed, slightly, "something along those lines."

"I meant, who you are is beautiful to me, not just what you look like. Do you believe that?"

Sansa blushed which Jon couldn't see, but he could hear her smile. "Yes, I believe you."

"Are you sure? Or are you in need of compliments to convince you?" He didn't wait for her response, wanting to praise her as if he could not help himself. "I love how good you are with Little Sam and the other children. How you march around and tell the stubbornest of Northern Lords what to do, and then you snatch up a child and coo and laugh and kiss them. I can't not love that."

"Everyone loves children."

"I love how you listen to the Lords. You're intent on what they're saying, but you consider far more than their words. You're fair, loyal, but not so soft that they could take advantage. You demand of them what you are owed, and you reward them with respect. You don't treat your position as what you are due, but as an obligation to your people."

"That's what father always did."

"I love how you care for Arya. How you make her clothes that she'll wear and yet find ways to make her look like a girl anyway."

"I didn't know you noticed that."

"That would he Gendry who noticed. I realized by spending a few too many evenings drinking with him. I think he momentarily forgot I was her--her cousin."

"I think Gendry will marry her the day she shows the least willingness."

"Sansa, I love how you care for me. That may sound selfish, but I love that you love me. I have never...no one has ever cared for me as you have."

"That's not true, Jon."

"Yes, it is true. It's absolutely true."

It was not rough hands or careless actions that began the crack in the ice, it was Jon's caring. Many small splinters had existed before, but now Sansa felt the fracturing of her protective layer, that at last whatever pretense she held onto had been finally pierced. Instead of a fall, it was him pulling her up, always tugging her along, keeping her near. Every day he needed her less, and yet every day he pulled her closer to him. Nothing made her happier than that because it was in her giving that she received.

The scars were ugly, an insistent voice telling them what they had survived, but he was still Jon, as unpleasant as it was, the damage to his body had not changed him. He had finally come out into the light, and they could live together, at last. She thought of what it would mean for him, what it meant for her. 

The ice ruptured. Everything below pushed up, nothing above could hold it down. She was weeping, weeping that he felt like Jon again, that he had made her Sansa again. She was no longer a delicate thing hidden by the ice, secreted away into safety. Now there was no difference between her substance and the surface. 

Jon told himself it was enough, to dry his tears, but Sansa's kindness was a weapon in its own manner, a tool a maester might use to expose the damaged flesh and remove it. Jon drowned in her, day after day after day, and he thought it was too much, that she did too much for him, only to learn she was more, always doing more than what he gave her credit for. Her actions made him feel unworthy of her, and yet they also made him feel like the most valuable thing in her life. With her, he never struggled alone. 

Her words cut away at the core of him. There were countless ways she found to bring him back into their world, and every time he discovered one, an unnoticed gentle way she had guided him, it broke something brittle within him, until he had nothing left of that bastard boy's bitterness. She drank all his childhood pain in with a smile and dissolved his walls in her laughter. Whatever anger he had she wiped away. In its place she rebuilt something so fragile and good and hopeful he thought he would weep every time she touched him. And she was always reaching out to him and pulling him to her, putting him in a position of respect, placing him by a fire to warm himself, telling him he was family, that he was loved.

So he did weep, and so did she, because many wounds were being healed, and healing is its own agony. 

 

 

 

 


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She thought of Jon again, putting aside the bandage that had covered his eyes, how he had come from his room because she told him to. How he sat with her at the high table in spite of his unease, simply because she asked him to. How a word or touch from her was enough to summon him to her side and keep him there. No, requests were hardly even necessary between them, he wanted to be with her, and she with him.

 

Jon had dressed for the feast and now sat in his chair, brooding, a habit he had largely forsaken in his new-found happiness, but on occasion, he was assaulted again with thoughts of what he did not have, fear of attempting to obtain it, terror that he never would.

With the enjoyment of moving about with ease came the loss of the constant visits to his room from his cousins. Jon told himself it was a ridiculous notion, being lonely now when he was free, yet he missed the closeness of family,  _her hands on his bandages, running down his cheek_. He shook his head.  _I can finally stand and walk by myself. I shouldn't want help._ But he knew, he knew why he wanted it.  _It's for the best, this little bit of distance, inadvertently created, it's for the best._ He told himself that every day when it had been hours without seeing her. In the evenings if she didn't come to his room.  _It's for the best._ And as often as he said it, his next response was always, _I hate it._  He still ate with her, what difference did it make that it was not the two of them alone, that it was now in the great hall?  _All the difference_. He held his head in his hands. It made _all_ the difference to him. 

It may be a small change, that little bit of distance, yet it made him all the more aware of her. Without her presence in his room he thought of her more.  _Her hands, soft and strong, sure and gentle._ No, he didn't need to see her to know her. He didn't need her beside him to be close to her. He knew the flames of her hair by scent, by their slow slide across his face when she had knelt by his bed, from when she’d press a kiss to his cheek. His hand involuntarily touched the scars running across his face, as if he could feel her fingers there still. The clothes he wore which she still insisted on mending herself, no hands save her own tending to them, and as much as Arya teased, Sansa occasionally embroidered decorations on them too. Gendry, always determined to be helpful, cheerfully commenting that the adornments weren’t necessarily done with colored threads, but the stitching was thick, as if meant to be pleasing to touch more than to sight.

It physically pained him, every time he discovered a new way she cared for him. So many ways that she helped him that he didn't even know, things he would probably never know. How undeserving of it he is, how Sansa should have someone who could do as much for her, but he couldn't leave now. He couldn't bear to walk through that gate and leave her again, and Arya would hunt him down and kill him herself if he tried. 

As if Gendry and Sam's words were not enough, as if his own desperation wasn’t enough, while guests were arriving for tonight's festivities, Arya had come to his room and without preamble lectured him, apparently weary of his silence and unsatisfied with her previous subtly.

"Jon, if you don't marry her, someone else will, and they won't be marrying her because they care about her. If you do care, and I _know_ you do, do this for her. Give her the chance to say yes or no. Don't let her do something we will all regret."

He should ask if she knew something he didn't, but what did it matter? Arya was right. He must speak or contain his madness. Arya left, knowing he wouldn’t respond, and as much as he wanted to be lost to it all, stay in his room and deny the existence of the world beyond it, ignore it all, he couldn’t. No, he couldn't do that; he couldn't stop himself now.

Sansa had become all consuming, not a wildfire that burned through everything, leaving only ash behind, but a campfire that warmed him, restoring parts of him that he thought had died in his first self. She was the fire that tore through the darkness surrounding him, she defied the darkness that dwelled within him, she burned through it all until she reached the good that remained in him, and then she saved it, she saved him. His world, everything he was, was known only in her presence. She was the light in his darkness, a flame he would always be drawn to. 

She wasn't loud or demanding, she was quiet and contained, somehow a more compelling presence than if she had been the opposite. She cared in the quiet ways that shape a life without you noticing, and the thought of losing any more than he had already frightened him. It frightened him more than anything else ever had.

\----

Sansa had not yet dressed for the banquet, her preparations arrested when she saw herself in the mirror. She stood there, before her dressing table, studying herself. Her hand rested against her leather belt, moved to the buckle, followed her necklace to her throat, where her collar, her furs, and the leather straps converged, crossing over and under, creating barrier after barrier to her skin.

She thought of Gilly, what it must have cost her to be brave. 

She removed the furs from her shoulders, pulled the necklace free, forcing herself to breath as she placed it on the table. 

She thought of Arya, how much time she had spent with Jon in his room even though she prowled about like a caged beast. How Arya had comforted her when she wept for Jon. How Arya played with Little Sam. How she kept trying to stay, fighting the compulsion to leave. How she struggled to be a part of this life, no matter how hard it was. How she laughed with Gendry and flushed when she caught him staring at her, as if he couldn't look away. 

Sansa's hands went to her belt, trembling, she unbuckled it, and carefully placed it on the bed. 

She thought of Jon, and how he had always looked at her that same way, and how now, when he touched her, his fingers said the same thing. He was always hesitant and careful. His fingers whispering what his eyes had declared over and over again, _I love you_. 

Her fingers ran over the material of her quilted dress, her last bit of protection, the thick cloth that secured her within a permanent shadow, unnecessary, but a security she was afraid to leave. 

She thought of Jon again, putting aside the bandage that had covered his eyes, how he had come from his room because she told him to. How he sat with her at the high table in spite of his unease, simply because she asked him to. How a word or touch from her was enough to summon him to her side and keep him there. No, requests were hardly even necessary between them, he wanted to be with her, and she with him.

Her fingers went to the laces at her back, as frightened as she was, as much as it felt like peeling off a second skin, she removed the dress.

 ----

Jon played with a sleeve embroidered with entwined swirls and curls, his fingers continually following the trail of stitches, one delicate line following another, twisting patterns that led him from one figure to the next. Smaller and larger leaves hung off vines, tendrils surrounding them. His fingers found the last embroidered leaf, and followed its stem, a long thin line trailing back to the first perfect stitch once more. The end always leading him back to the beginning. He smiled, allowed the expression to fall from his face to sigh again. Everything was against him today, even his clothing. A knock, and then Sansa was coming into the room, "Will you walk me down, Jon?"

He rose, his chair creaking, "Yes, I--" he could feel himself flushing, how he hated that he was continually embarrassed before her, yet it did not completely demoralize him, and it would not stop him, "May I see you, Sansa?"

Understanding what he meant, and slightly flushed herself, Sansa came to him, gently placing his hands on her shoulders. "I'm wearing a blue dress."

His hands slid down her shoulders to her elbows where the material fell away in long open sleeves. "Did I ever see you wear this?"

"No, I've been sewing this in the evenings when I wasn't reading."

"It's very soft" he offered, finding he had never learned how to compliment a beautiful woman appropriately, but he didn’t remove his hands from her. He did not want to. "It has been a long while since you wore a color other than grey."

"Yes, but--"

"--we are no longer at war?"

"We are not. And I am…happy" she offered it, shyly, as if afraid to let the words free in fear of where they would fly. "Do you miss your vanity bandage?" She surprised herself with the question only a little less than she surprised him.

He laughed, "Is that what you called it?" 

Sansa hummed noncommittally, "Perhaps."

"Do you miss your chain?"

"How did--"

"I didn't hear it when you came in."

She sighed, "No, I will not miss it." 

Stillness filled the room, their silence communicating more than their words often did, and Jon struggled with himself, wanting to speak and yet not wanting to at all. "Does your dress have decoration?"

"No fierce wolves on this gown I’m afraid, although I do have an overabundance of embroidery on the neckline. I became too enthusiastic with my needle and threads." She hesitated, then moved his hand from her shoulder, guiding it across the modest neckline. 

With a single finger he followed the embroidery from one shoulder to the other, the same swirling lines of vines and leaves adorning her gown that she had sewn on his sleeve. The tip of his finger brushed against her skin, and her breathing quickened, but they both remained silent for the moment as he admired her. 

Almost everything in life still seemed a vague dream to him, but Sansa always remained firm reality. Even when he struggled to catch hold of anything or anyone else, he always had the sensation that she was there, holding onto him. He would gladly be lost in this feeling forever.

Finally, Sansa spoke, her voice slightly hoarse as if it had been hours rather than minutes since she talked. "My hair is as you’ve seen it before." She guided his hands to gently pat it, "Don't ruin it!" She laughed as his fingers instinctively stroked the silky strands. It was braided, as she had so often worn. 

"Your hair is lovely however you wear it, even if I did accidentally pull some loose." He placed his hands on her waist. Startling himself as well as her. She gasped, he struggled to breath himself before following his boldness with an even stranger request, "Will you dance with me?"

"You don't dance, Jon."

"Not down there, right now."

"Don't be ridiculous."

Yet his hands were so tender, his breath warm on her cheeks, and she wanted to dance with him. She lifted her hands, hesitating before placing them on his shoulders. Not the most proper way to dance, but he couldn't see to lead her safely around the room.  _This is reasonable, it only makes sense_ , or so she told herself. Sansa hummed some tune, she wasn't sure which, and it didn't matter to Jon who happily stepped on her toes until she couldn't hum for laughing. "You have only gotten _worse_ at dancing, Jon."

"I didn't have much practice at the Wall" he smiled into her hair that brushed against his face every time she turned her head.

"Sam wasn't obliging? Tormund couldn't keep time? Was it Edd? Did he insist on leading?" Once Sansa had Jon laughing, he relaxed, improving his dancing to the extent that he would take several steps before stumbling over her.

" _Alright_." She stopped moving and rested a hand affectionately on his beard. "I have tormented you long enough. Time to go play Lady of Winterfell."

"Is that more fun than playing nursemaid to me?"

"I have very important people to attend to." Sansa replied, not answering the question.

"In their opinion, but none of them are as important as you."

She laughed. "Even so, I cannot make them wait."

"Yes, you can. Just a little longer." Jon surprised her by lifting one hand in the air, his other gently pressing on her back. "You're meant to turn, Sansa."

"I--I am out of practice." She spun under his arm and came back to him, a touch nearer than before, and though they stood still neither removed their hands from the other.

Finally, Jon took her hand in his, but he did not lead her from the room as she expected, instead he simply held it, which she permitted as she had no genuine interest in leaving. He raised his free hand slowly, giving her time to stop it if she chose before it touched her cheek. She did not wish to stop him, and soon Jon's trembling fingers were on her face, traveling over her eyebrows down to her eyelashes where they fell against her cheek. Her cheek bones were followed back until his fingers were tangled in fine red hair, which he tucked behind her ear, drawing his fingers forward again below her jawline, mesmerizing her with soft touches, capturing her with his gentle strength.

He could not see tears collect in her eyes, or see how her chest rose and fell, but he could feel it, he could hear it. His hand cupped her soft cheek which she slowly rubbed against the callouses scattered across his hand. He did not want to speak. This moment, this glorious piece of time allowed him to believe what he wanted rather than have his delusion crushed. 

Jon thought of Sam and Arya's words.  _You've been patient. Sansa's been patient._ He brought his face closer to hers and although his fingers were still uncertain, although they shook with fear, he could still feel her tremble beneath them, telling him what he needed to know before he asked the question.

_You don't have to wait._ Sansa didn't feel as brave as Gilly, but she had put aside her armor, not that it had even been necessary, none of that affected Jon. He had seen her as she was however she tried to hide herself. He had always touched her as she was meant to be touched. 

"Jon?" She was asking him something, but her voice, her breath, she already knew the answer to her question. His forehead fell forward to meet hers, his nose pressing against hers in what he could only assume was a ridiculous manner, but she was so close, and she did not want to leave.

All Sansa needed was that one light touch, Jon's small gasp for air, "Why didn't you _tell_ me?" she whispered.

"Why didn't  _you_  tell me?" 

They could not help themselves, they laughed, softly, faces pressed together. And yet Sansa still recognized the ever-present fear in his fingertips, "You often touched my face before, when you were ill."

"I did not know your feelings then."

"It makes you nervous to know them?"

"Before it was--I imagined, hoped, but now, it is real, and I am afraid"

"What have you to be afraid of now?"

He smiled, "I don't know. You--I feel wrong, selfish, you could have anyone--are you sure?"

"Yes, Jon. And you? You could have someone else."

"No one else would have me. Have you seen this face?" Jon replied, no trace of bitterness in his mirth. 

"I would think the sulking was more of a deterrent."

"I only sulk when you're away."

"Are you _flirting_ with me?"

"I've been trying." He admitted, embarrassed.

"You poor man."

An exasperated sigh fell from his lips to Sansa's. 

"Jon, you should kiss me"

"I should."

He did. 

Sansa was in his arms, he could not think, all his thoughts were scattered. It flashed through his mind that falling off a dragon was not too great a price to pay for this. Her arms were around his neck, her fingers were curling into his hair. Dying? Coming back from the dead? It seemed a reasonable exchange. Sansa's face was buried in his curls, clinging to him as she had never before, and Jon had the insistent thought that everything, all of what his life had been, the betrayals and death and misery and lies, it was all worth it. Everything had led him back to her, and she was worth it all. 

"Take a walk to the heart tree with me before we break fast in the morning?" He whispered into her hair. 

"Y-yes." She answered breathlessly. He could not see her burning cheeks or glowing eyes, but he could hear her emotions in her voice. 

He opened his mouth to speak, but Arya and Gendry burst through the door, and as if caught in a position that Arya and Gendry hadn't hounded them into, Sansa and Jon sprung apart, neither effectively nor convincingly, as neither truly wanted to be separated from the other. Jon's hands fell to his sides, and Sansa’s fingers brushed against his, then curled into them.

The intruders came into the room with urgency in their steps. "A raven, from the hand of the Queen." Arya said, examining Jon and Sansa with keen interest while Gendry simply smirked knowingly. Jon was torn, suffering from such bliss that he wanted to hug them both and such annoyance with their poor timing that he wanted to chase them away.

But all else was forgotten when Sansa unfurled the scroll and announced in a monotone, "Daenerys is dead."

 


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You know what the Red Lady told me? She said that I would make kings rise and fall. She was evil, but I thought, maybe she wasn't wrong. Maybe my part was to help bring a Queen down from the sky."

"What? How?" Arya was all confusion, and, excitement. "I didn't do it" she declares, as if that was anyone's current thought. It was most likely going to be Jon's next, but there was no reason to say so. 

Sansa threw the scroll into the fire. She and Gendry silent, Jon grappling with suspicions.  Arya waited for anyone to say something, whether concerns for the future or curiosity as to what had happened, or even a comment about the weather, but nothing was forthcoming from her sister or cousin.

"Let's go down." Gendry pulled Arya along with him. "Jon will bring Sansa." At the door he reassured Sansa they wouldn't say anything, but as soon as they reached an alcove, he pulled Arya into it, holding her tightly against his chest.

"What are you doing?" Arya asked, surprising herself and Gendry by not struggling against his sudden embrace. 

Gendry cleared his throat, before gruffly admitting. "It was me." 

"Who wa--what?  _You_? You were here! You couldn't--"

"Sansa didn't send me away just to keep me safely away from Daenerys. I would have never agreed, not when we were at war. I went to King's Landing."

"When?"

"Before the war."

"The war between the queens?"

"No, the Great War."

Arya pushed herself away from him. "I don't understand. _Why_?"

"Precaution. Sansa was afraid of Daenerys, what she would do. She knew about these, these weapons that could bring down a dragon."

"You rode South to learn how to make one?"

"Yes. Then I went to the Vale, the Reach, the Riverlands, I stopped in many castles on the way back North. I traveled as a no name blacksmith, and I made them.  Sansa didn't want anyone defenseless, but I never breathed a word it was she who sent me. There are advantages to being no one."

"I've heard" Arya half laughed her response before shaking her head. "She never-- _you_  didn't tell me."

"It's--we could have been--no one could know. Anyone who did could have been burned for it."

Arya studied him, undecided on how she should react. Sansa had contingencies, how she hadn't considered the possibility before she didn't know. "Daenerys threatened someone then. She flew to a castle you had armed."

"I assume--yes."

"So you  _did_  do this."

Gendry' response was a little more pressure, holding her a little tighter, as his head fell back and rested on the wall behind him. There was no satisfaction on his face, but there was relief. He nodded. "You know what the Red Lady told me? She said that I would make kings rise and fall. She was evil, but I thought, maybe she wasn't wrong. Maybe my part was to help bring a Queen down from the sky."

"So you wanted glory, is that it?"

"Remember Harrenhal? That man who helped us? Jaqen? I said you should have asked him to kill Joffrey or Tywin, that you could have ended the war. I wasn't afraid of dying then, wasn't when I went beyond the Wall or when I came here. I didn't and don't want to die, but if me dying might mean thousands of people don’t, it's worth it. Your sister gave me an opportunity to save lives, countless lives, prevent a war that we all knew would come when the Dragon burned another Lord, or when her pets started attacking our own people."

"Sansa should have never--"

"This was the best way. The Dragon Queen was fighting two wars, one after another, she didn't have time, didn't have the sense to know what we thought of her. The Lords were afraid of her, hated her, but knew they couldn't touch her because of those damned dragons. They wanted it, they _all_ wanted the means to defend themselves. Most of 'em never even knew about me. I just sidled up to their castle blacksmiths and offered subtle hints until they took the bait."

" _You_? Subtle?"

"I made it back in one piece, didn't I?"

"But you left. You didn't even come to see me before you packed up and went away, choosing to leave me for a second time. We could have all died." Arya sounded whiny in her own ears and could not quite explain why what was already past was so upsetting to her.

"If your half god, all-seeing brother, your cousin who can come back from the dead, and Daenerys the unburnt with her dragons and armies couldn't save you, I wasn't going to either." Gendry tried to lessen the aggravation in his tone. "The Red Lady is dead, and that's good, but she wasn't wrong about me. I'm no foot soldier. I've been serving someone all my life, and I hated it. I chose to fight with your cousin. I freely went with him beyond the Wall. I went South on the behest of your sister. No one made me do those things, I wanted to do them, and I was the only one who could do the last."

Arya studied the man before her, considering his words and then her own. "Daenerys' armies were decimated weren't they?"

"Yes, between the wildfire, dragon fire, the archers in King's Landing, there was very little left of either her or the Lannister armies."

"Good." Arya pushed away from him. "Then we can go to the banquet now."

"Wha--shouldn't--you don't want to yell at me some more? That--you didn't even hit me. What happened to fighting? Don't we--aren't we going to argue?"

"No, we are not." She was looking back at him with a steady calmness, her dark eyes gleaming. "No one wanted that woman here. She was a conqueror, not our rightful queen, and this was the safest way to remove her. I'm glad she died, and that it was now, after she watched her armies and dragons die. I’m glad she knew how much we loathed her. She didn't deserve to die in battle for her throne, she deserved to die after she got it and knew it meant nothing. Knew that she might sit the throne, but her subjects saw what she was." Arya's face had become alarmingly blank, her features so controlled she inadvertently forgot to allow emotions to penetrate her facade at times, but her voice frightened Gendry, the seething hatred was a dreadful thing to hear. "And I am glad that I didn't have to kill her myself" Arya continued, never losing eye contact with Gendry, "I am glad that someone else did it before I was forced to."

Gendry realized that Arya was trying to be honest, trying to let him see her for what she was now, and that even though her face held no lines of distress, there was apprehension in her eyes. 

"I would have helped you if it came to that" he said, gently rubbing his rough hands along her small arms in what he hoped was a soothing gesture. They spent much of their time together, but never like this. Never with her speaking of her thoughts and feelings, never with his arms around her.

"I should have known Sansa had a plan." Arya permitted a smile, "Sisters." 

Although Gendry had seen dragons, White Walkers, direwolves, an undead bear, and a man rise from the dead, he had never been more surprised by anything than when Arya smiled widely at him, stretched up on tiptoes, and sweetly kissed his cheek, as if she were a dainty girl and he her beaux. "Let's get something to eat,” and Arya led the flummoxed blacksmith to dinner.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, but I'm working on Jon and Sansa's convo and couldn't get it to come out right, so figured I'd just go ahead and update with Gendrya's reaction. Also, I know this scenario isn't happening in the show, but I liked the idea of Gendry playing a significant role in saving Westeros.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was too much to have her love, Jon could not bear the thought that she would kneel to him. Her devotion as a woman was more than he had ever thought to claim, he had no interest in her allegiance to a crown. He brought her hand to his lips to kiss it. "I would never permit that. It is I who should kneel before you."

 

"You did this." It wasn't a question, Jon knew she had. 

"Yes." Sansa replied, no regret or shame.

Jon moved to his chair and sat, overwhelmed. "You had Gendry build scorpions." 

"Yes."

"Where?"

"Everywhere."

"Did Tyrion know?"

"No, he loved her, he couldn’t—no. I did not trust him."

"Is that why you didn't tell me?"

"No, _no_ Jon, never." she came to him, standing next to his chair, her hand resting on his shoulder. "I knew why you went to get her, why you followed her South. You love us, you love the North. No, I never questioned that. I--" She sighed, hating to even mention his name again, but did. "Littlefinger was an evil man, and I am glad he is dead, but he told me that everyone is a friend and an enemy, that everything that's happening has happened before, that I must fight every battle, not just one. I thought, if we won the Great War, we could—we _would_ have a tyrant for a queen. No one would be able to check her, she had dragons and armies that we couldn't touch. I knew who Gendry was, as soon as I saw him, so I spoke to him, learned what he was capable of and saw an opportunity to protect him as well as, possibly us all. I asked him to do this thing for me, for us, for everyone. I told him that he could be the man to save Westeros, only no one would ever know. The only way for us to know we wouldn't be subject to a tyrant was if we could defend ourselves, so Gendry ensured we could."

"We have one here?"

Sansa's silence was a yes. "Are you angry?" She asked, quietly, her hand still upon his shoulder. He placed his hand on hers, whatever had happened had happened. "No, no. How could--no." He drew her hand from his shoulder, pulling her closer until she sat on the arm of his chair, sliding his arm around her waist. "I am relieved. I felt guilt that I had helped her, and I worried what else she might burn. You did right. I only wish I could have been the one to help you."

"Don't be greedy. You can't _always_ be the hero. Gendry deserved a turn."

Jon permitted a quiet chuckle at that. He expected her at any moment to say they needed to join their guests, yet they sat together watching and listening to the flames begin to falter, then finally burn themselves out.

"When I heard you fell, I thought it was because of me. I thought perhaps it was one of the--"

"No," Jon stopped her, "No, you are not to blame for any of this. Even if it had been, you--you did what was right. You had to save our people."

Sansa shifted, and then spoke, her voice full of the emotion she routinely hid. "I kept thinking of the fire, watching the wights burn as they did. I have no love for King's Landing, but the people--"

"I know."

"And before I had even seen it, as soon as I saw her, I just _knew_. I didn't wait to see, I immediately sent Gendry on his way. I was afraid of what she was from the beginning." 

"I know."

"It is not wise to take action based on fear, and I--I did nothing myself. I just gave the option to others, knowing someone would take it. Her allies were mostly dead even before the war, I suspected her armies would be nearly gone after, the risks were minimized and given the opportunity--" The burned-out log flickered between ash grey and red, finally falling with a soft thump into ashes. "--it was inevitable that someone would take it. I put the weapon in the hands of others to keep my own clean. I am not proud of it, Jon, but I am glad it is over before anything worse was begun." 

"I know." Each time he said it he felt more remorse, remembering his part, watching the city burn in his memory all over again. There would never have been peace as long as she had a dragon, not as long as she lived. But there was another thought, that if Daenerys had lived and wanted him still, broken as he was, that he would have had to return to her or risk her displeasure. Selfishly, he found this reason the one that buried any feelings of guilt they shared. It was an effective overthrowing of an unworthy ruler, and the more he thought of it, the more he was grateful for Sansa's silent rebellion. "Death is sometimes necessary for life. And though we should never rejoice in it," his fingers flexed on her waist, then held on, just a little more tightly, "I am glad as well."

“You are her heir, Jon.”

He had not even considered that.

“You could be King again.”

“I wouldn’t, don’t—” What he could he say? Could he refuse it now? Ruling was a burden he did not wish to bear, that much power a curse. It was Sansa who was fit to rule; she was always meant to be a queen. He loathed politics and the endless negotiations, the struggle for meaningless ends, results that were reversed too soon to have mattered in the first place. He could not refuse if he was needed, and someone must rule, but he wished it did not have to be him. If his parentage wasn't enough to make the Northern Lords turn on him, bending the knee to the dragon had been. He'd defeated death, that victory was enough to make them forgive him, enough that they did not resent him. They even trusted him again, but it was not Jon they would permit to rule them.

He shook his head, "They would not kneel to me now."

" _I would_."

It was too much to have her love, Jon could not bear the thought that she would kneel to him. Her devotion as a woman was more than he had ever thought to claim, he had no interest in her allegiance to a crown. He brought her hand to his lips to kiss it. "I would never permit that. It is I who should kneel before you."

"We must send word to the Lords. They will want independence, but tonight, we shall not speak of it with anyone else."

Jon sighed, weary, resigned, “What would _you_ have me do? What do you want?”

"Safety. I'm so tired of death. All I have seen since leaving Winterfell was death, and it's surrounded us ever since we returned. I want us all to stay here, in Winterfell. I never want to go South again. Let each kingdom rule itself as they deem fit. Let us remain at home, together.”

Jon's head rested against her arm, both knew what she said was as true for him as for her. Death had been their constant companion since childhood. "Safety, peace, happiness. It sounds like a dream I had as a boy. What a foolish child I was."

"Are we not to have it then? I thought we had finally wrested our future free from those who would harm us."

"I think you are smarter than I. If you say it is so, I will believe it."

Sansa finally stood, her obligations too long ignored. "I am still afraid sometimes, but I have hope for the future for many reasons. And I know I told you to stop protecting me, but--I always feel safe when you are here."

"I'm a maimed blind man, Sansa. I couldn't--"

"Jon," she came back to him quickly, her cool fingers sliding along his jawline, before he could catch a breath, she gently lifted his face towards her. She wanted to capture his attention before speaking, to see his face, to know that he understood her. "You still protect me. When I am with you, I feel safer than I do anywhere else." 

It may be foolish to believe such words, but Jon had long since accepted being thought a fool.

\---

After the guests had been sufficiently entertained, Arya and Sansa made their way back to their rooms, Jon and Gendry having long since abandoned them to go sit in a quiet corner. While they usually told each other of their travels, tonight they were subdued by the knowledge of the Queen’s death. Typically, they might laugh over their trip beyond the Wall which was one experience Sansa never spoke of with Jon after hearing the initial retelling. She found it impossibly infuriating and had to fight the urge to inflict further injury upon him for being so reckless. Arya kept that thought tucked away. It would be helpful to remind Sansa of Jon’s idiocy as a distraction if Sansa were to ever find any of her own exploits too dangerous. Sansa kissed Jon’s cheek before she and Arya left the hall, causing Jon to blush, Arya to roll her eyes, and Gendry to laugh into his cup.

When the girls reached Sansa’s room Arya hesitated at the door, clearly wanting to say something, and Sansa pulled her in, closing it behind her.

"I believed you. You said we couldn't kill her, and I didn't."

"Yes.” Sansa offered nothing further.

"You already had a plan in motion."

"Not much of a plan re--"

"Sansa."

"Yes. Gendry was already traveling."

" _Not yet_."

"What?"

"You told me 'not yet' and I thought it was just a matter of time before I would--before I would need to--"

"Oh, _Arya_." Sansa hugged her, an unexpected display of affection between the sisters, but both were grateful to have the other close.

Arya’s voice was strained, her emotion so great that she struggled to contain it, "I'm so...you didn't make the mistake, the mistake that father made, and that Jon makes, trusting that other people are what we are. That they want the thing they say they want. That they will do the honorable or good thing. Killing her was—"

"It was always going to happen. If you have power, you have to fear using it, resist it. She had unassailable power, and she _wanted_ to use it. She forced the powerless to beg her to deny her first impulse. She had no subservience to ideals that exceeded her own desire to rule over others. She had only one method of solving her problems, violence, and she did not understand that she could oppress us, but she would never lead us. Perhaps she was not always so, but you saw, I saw; she was a slave to her desire for the throne."

"— _necessary_." Arya finally finished her thought.

"Yes." Sansa released her sister and gave a pained smile. "Violence begets violence, but it is, unfortunately, the price of freedom. Even father went to war." Sansa moved across the room, beginning her preparations for bed, her routine unshakable even though their lives had been irreversibly altered.

"You were smarter. You were smarter than father, than Robb, even smarter than Jon.

“Sometimes it falls to the lesser among us to learn and do better the next time around.” Sansa sighed, regretful, "I'm sorry for not telling you that Gendry lived, that he had come here, that he had left, but I thought this was the safest way."

"What if someone had told the Queen? Gendry was risking his life. What if--"

"Arya, there are many possibilities in life, and we have all had to make difficult decisions. I _asked_ , I did not command, and Gendry accepted. No one else knew, there was no one else who could tell."

"Except all the people he visited!"

"Yes, but at the time Jon was—was _with_ Daenerys, and I hoped that if necessary, he would be able to intervene on Gendry's behalf. It was the most reasonable course of action I could take in the situation."

"I'm not angry, I'm--well, I'm impressed you would be that conniving. I approve of it, really. You didn't need to pick up a sword for your enemy to be cut down. That's a power most could never wield. The power of ideas so potent others claim them as their own. The power of words over weapons. A Lady’s strength, a much cleaner, more practical way of handling your enemy than doing it yourself and starting a war."

"Then we shall say goodnight and never speak of it again. The Queen had few friends, but it is always wisest to keep certain knowledge secure." Sansa finished unbraiding her hair and began to brush it.

Arya walked away from her sister, her hand on the door, preparing to leave, but she paused, "I feel like I waver and run between identities. The girl I was, the assassin I was trained to be, the woman I am now. I don't know how to be any of them, not really. At different times I am one or none or all." She sighed, speaking of such things nearly as uncomfortable as it had been to acknowledge them to herself. "Gendry, he feels like a person who doesn't mind that. He feels like a man who could hold me no matter who or what I am. Does that—does it make sense?" 

Arya still faced the door, unable to confess her feelings to Sansa's face, and Sansa wisely stayed where she was across the room, hairbrush in hand, although she had stilled when Arya began to speak. "I understand that feeling more than you could possibly know."

Arya glanced at her then, her confused face falling into a small smile. "Good." Her eyes brightened a little, "Gendry is fearless in his way, isn't he?"

"Yes, a very brave man. The bravest of men. I am sorry if him leaving before the war made you think otherwise."

"It's alright. I expect it will come in handy at some point in the future. It's always good to have things to fight over. Don't want to run out of conversation."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't post twice on this fic this week because I did a Ned/Cat one shot called "Grey" for a tumblr event, and it took me forever to finish it! I posted it here on Ao3 as well, and I developed this headcanon that some of Sansa's ideas about what a man should say to a woman are influenced by what Cat told her Ned has said/done. So, I inserted into my NedCat fic a little callback (call forward?) to telling a lady her name is pretty because the idea made me happy. Just letting you know in case you want to read it. 
> 
> As for "Healing", one more chapter of Jonsa and then the epilogue. I've been determined to get this story wrapped up before s8 starts, so hopefully you'll see both those updates next week.
> 
> I'm excited to complete my first multi-chapter fic, but also sad, because I will miss this story, and all of you who have been here the whole time encouraging me. I will write more Jonsa after this. I have bits of scenes and dialogue for other fics so that's happening regardless of what happens on the show, but this fic was special to me and you amazing people made it a wonderful experience. Thank you.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "When?" He asked. What an impossible question. Is it like falling? A sensation that jars you into fighting it, only in time to recognize the inevitability of the crash? Yes, he had felt that when he walked back into Winterfell after Dragonstone. He was lost, too far gone to recover, but it was not then that it began.

 

Sansa arrived for their walk early the next morning as if nothing had changed overnight, and it was strange to Jon how everything could be the same and yet so very different. Ghost quickly sprang away, eager for a run, while he and Sansa walked together, slowly making their way to the heart tree. 

He did not wish to speak of Daenerys. Sansa did, apparently, and told him of the general unrest following Daenerys' burning of the Tarlys. "I knew the Lords of Westeros would not trust her after that, that given the chance, they would be happy to end the dragons." She looked at Jon whose face was grim and sorrowful in the early morning light before she continued. "There was no grand plan, no conspiracy. No one knew what the next one did, only Gendry and I knew. I think everyone was afraid to say what we all knew, but whispers are louder than shouts, words more potent than poison. Fear more deadly than fire. She should have considered earning our trust rather than crushing us. She should have considered that she could not burn all of us, not at once. She should have considered what we would be willing to risk for freedom."

"And what is that? What do we risk for it?"

"What we have already risked, what our parents and grandparents risked. What the North risked. What all men and women always risk, their homes, their future, their lives."

"Would she have been worse?" Jon asked, his face tilted to the first fingers of sunlight finding its way through the trees. 

"Would she have been any better?" Sansa countered, unperturbed by his question.

"I feel guilt for how relieved I am. The last of the Targaryens, and I am more hopeful today than yesterday for our future, because she is dead. It makes me feel like a monster." 

" _She_  was the last Targaryen?" Sansa asked.

"Yes."

"I'm happy you feel that way because you are a Stark to me."

He smiled, faintly, "You've told me that before."

"You're so much like father." She pulled herself closer into his side, their furs fading into each other. "Do you know how upset mother was when he went to King's Landing? He said he didn't have a choice, not when duty demands or honor calls, and so he left, and then what became of us all. Father left, and he died. Robb left, and he died. You left for Dragonstone, nearly died. You came home only to leave again, and then you nearly died, _again_."

"I am here now, Sansa." They had reached their destination, but Sansa did not move to sit, so they stood before the face of the tree, beneath the ceiling of its outstretched limbs, some of the red leaves dipping down near enough to touch them, others reaching far above into the lightening sky.

"You have confessed your relief that the Queen is dead, permit my confession. I--I think you will be angered and pained by it."

"You can say nothing that will anger me."

"I am grateful for this." Her hand touched the scars near his eyes. "I am grateful you can't go off to war again. I pray to all the gods, because I am so _thankful_ that no matter what your honor demands, you will never be compelled to fight in a war again."

Jon found her hand, held it as she continued.

"I hate myself that I find happiness in your darkness, that to me, _that_ is what gives me hope for your future. I want you to grow old. I want to see grey in this beard and in your hair. We will have good men to serve you, to fight for you. Gendry is always eager to help, but these unseeing eyes and this mangled arm? I thank the gods for it. Every time I see it, _I thank the gods_. I do not have the stomach of a warrior, a heart that beats for victory. I want you to live, even at the cost of all this. I think of mother, how frightened she must have been when father went to war, how helpless she must have felt every time he would leave, even to settle small disputes. I am grateful, so very grateful that you cannot. What kind of person is thankful for another person's suffering?"

Jon exhaled slowly as Sansa waited anxiously, trying to read his somber face.

"I am thankful too. I was willing to go South and lose my life to protect you, I was willing to marry Daenerys if necessary, I would do anything for you. Given this chance to live again, I can find no disappointment in it. My shoulder aches, my leg occasionally falters, what is it but a reminder that I live? It is a sorrowful thing not to be able to see the heart tree, not to watch the snow fall or the grass begin to push through the dirt when it melts. I will grieve never seeing Ghost run until he fades into the whiteness of the snow. I will mourn never seeing your face again, the blue of your eyes that calms me, the red of your hair that warms me. To never see my loved ones again, that is a burden that will seem cruel, but I am not a fool, and I am happy to live yet. I died once, should have died many times. I will not now question the manner in which I am permitted to live. I find, I am also thankful for the blindness itself. You did not want me to leave, I did not want to go. I will never be forced away to war again. I will never be expected to kill another man. That is a freedom I never expected. I am happy for that.” He smiled, “What kind of man feels that way? Arya would be ashamed of us both if she heard."

They laughed softly, relieved. 

Sansa fought tears, "I don't care about warriors or knights. I've seen too many die, had too many leave me to ever want that. The Hound, Tormund, Brienne, Theon, Jaime, Uncle Benjen, Robb, my father. Those who fight die, in battle or later, by the hand of their enemies. I am happy that you no longer have the choice to obey honor, because I know you would, if called upon. And I don't, couldn't think less of you for not wanting to. Killing is killing, whether you wear furs, gold armor, black leather, or a white cloak. I do not romanticize it. It's the stuff of dreams only if you're having a nightmare."

Jon pulled her to him and held her. She understood him, even those thoughts he could not share with others, those faces that haunted him still, the fears that plagued him. She knew and accepted and shared them. He did not deserve...then he remembered what he had wanted to say last night, why they were walking together so early. "Do you know that I love you?"

Sansa laughed, "Yes, Jon. You made that clear. You are not good at hiding your emotions." She brushed snowflakes from his hair, “I will tell you the truth however much it may shock you. While you were at Dragonstone Lord Baelish asked me why I was not happy. He asked me what I wanted that I did not have, and the only thought I had was that I wanted you home. I wanted you with me. Then I did not know how much my feelings for you had changed, but when you returned, I knew what I felt was nothing like what I had ever felt before, for anyone.”

Jon was not as surprised by her confession as she had expected, instead he seemed pleased by it. "All this time?"

"The kind of love I felt may have changed, but it was love, and then when I knew who you were, as soon as it was possible, sooner than that, it became _love_. And you?"

"When?" He asked. What an impossible question. Is it like falling? A sensation that jars you into fighting it, only in time to recognize the inevitability of the crash? Yes, he had felt that when he walked back into Winterfell after Dragonstone. He was lost, too far gone to recover, but it was not then that it began.

Sansa was too interwoven into his coming back to life to distinguish her from life at all. From the point of meeting her everything after  _and_  before changed. He felt he had loved her all along, that she had been there every step of the way guiding him until she finally made it to the Wall and saved him. Because she had. She had saved him then, saved him during the Battle of the Bastards, and saved him again after King's Landing. "I cannot say when. There's--some people say you are given one to another, that loving someone means, it means owning them in some way."

"I am yours, you are mine" Sansa supplied. 

Jon breathed in sharply, "Where did you hear that?" 

"I've been married twice now, Jon. They're part of the vows! You said it once too, in your delirious state. I assumed it was perhaps something you spoke with the Wildlings."

Jon understood what she meant by that. "No, I spoke no vows. I--I only ever promised myself to the Night's Watch and then to you. 'Where will  _we_  go.' I meant that. Ever since the moment you rode through the gate at Castle Black, we were no longer two people, to me, we became one. Never you or me, only  _us_  and  _we_."

Sansa quietly traced the direwolf on the leather across his chest, waiting a moment to respond, causing Jon a small amount of unease at her silence. "I was loved by mother and father and by Septa Mordane, in part because I was good. I did as I was told. Then, they were gone, and there was no one. I couldn't trust anyone or love anyone because they were all liars in King’s Landing, and so I became strong, although strength isn't pleasing. I fought becoming brittle, I wanted to trust and love, but I kept forgetting."

"Forgetting what?”

"What it feels like to be loved."

" _Oh Sansa_ \--" but he could not speak. For hadn't he, in his own experiences felt the same? And yet he had found men he admired, men who became his friends, men who became his brothers. Sansa had found nothing, had been alone. He'd forgotten how very alone she was because ever since they had reunited, he had not felt it himself. She did not let him. "I wish there was some Lord or King who was worthy of you, who would love you the way you deserve."

"There isn't anyone else, Jon. There could never be anyone else." Sansa hands were on either side of his face, sinking into his beard, smiling, because she could not help herself when his face displayed all the love she had grown accustomed to seeing him wear. "Jon, you do not need to tell me when you loved me, because ever since you kissed my forehead, since you promised to protect me, since you said 'where will  _we_  go.' I have known you loved me. You loved me when no one else did."

Jon's hands reached out for her, one falling into her hair, the other finding her chin, gently pulling her closer to him. She was always being drawn to him, and him to her, as if they did not even need to choose it, they must simply obey.

" _You_  are why I know what love is." Her fingers drifted up over his cheek, the marred skin still sensitive to her every touch, his eyelids fell together and she traced over the scars, down the ridge of his nose, now slightly crooked, and dropped down to his lips. "I know now what love feels like." She said again, her lips close enough to his own he tasted her frosty breath and sweet words. "It feels like this," and she was kissing him, and he was kissing her, and there was no bastard of Winterfell or Wardeness of the North, no King or Lord Commander, no Lady Lannister or Lady Bolton, there was nothing beyond Sansa and Jon as they were in that moment. No before or after, no dragons or rebellion, it was just them, declaring what they had discovered, delighting in what they created, sharing the joy neither expected to ever encounter. Sansa tucked her face into Jon's neck, "How could I _not_ love you?" 

"I am torn between wanting to ask and knowing it may be unfair to you to do so, yet I must ask. Whatever your answer is, I _must_ ask."

“You don’t need to ask. You are right. Ever since Castle Black, we became one without even knowing it, and one we will remain.”

Sansa was ready to return to kissing him, but Jon was not finished. “When I fell during the battle for Winterfell and thought I'd be trampled, I got up because I knew it meant you living or dying. When I fought wights beyond the Wall, fell into a frozen lake, I got up, because it was you that had to be saved. When I was falling from the dragon into darkness and did not know yet if I would, or could live, the thought of you made me come back. I will make one more vow before this tree the day you are ready, a vow to you, and it will be my last vow."

And then Sansa was in his arms again, and the worry, the burdens, the fears they carried for so long were lost to the past while they were lost in the present. They had traveled from their home, further and further away from each other, only to be drawn back, only together becoming what they were intended to be.  

Jon had given up on the gods, convinced that the nothing he found after his death was proof they had been lies, but Sansa was not a lie, her hands and lips were not lies. Standing in the godswood with her, Jon thought that perhaps the gods were real, and that being with Sansa now was the purpose of it all.

Sansa was so thoroughly lost in Jon it was some time before she could think clearly. When she did, her only thought was how strange it was, to no longer be afraid.

 

 


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After healing comes happiness, long sought for, hard fought for, and marred as it is, it is still happiness.

_The After_

 

After healing comes happiness, long sought for, hard fought for, and marred as it is, it is still happiness. 

Jon and Sansa's happiness is savored in every form, the first fruit of the rebuilt glass gardens, the warmth of their first summer together in Winterfell, the swirl of wine which Sansa encourages Jon to drink on days when his injuries pain him too much and when he declines, teasingly murmurs "but it's  _red_  Jon, and so  _sweet_ " until he blushes, because as long as they are married, Sansa delights in making him blush and Jon cannot help but oblige. 

Jon finds he does not need sight to know how radiant Sansa is, not when they are married, and they dance in the great hall, even though Jon swore he never would and then swore he never would again, he keeps saying yes, because he can't say no to Sansa, not when her cheek is on his and he can feel her smile.

The realization that they are not the last Starks, that there will be children, causes Sansa to quietly weep, wishing that her own mother were alive, and Jon holds her as she sobs for Catelyn Stark, a woman he thanks the gods for. She gave him his life when she gave life to his wife, for Sansa's grief he grieves. And yet, their mourning cannot diminish their joy. Jon knows this when he hears Sansa coo and babble to their son, her delight expressed better in those sounds than words. Her glee in the curly dark hair of their first son endless.

Fatherhood makes Jon think of his own parents, and Sansa holds Jon when he weeps for his father who was no one to him, his uncle who was his father, his brother who was his cousin, his unknown aunt who was his mother, for all that was taken from him without him knowing. And he sheds tears of gratitude for all that was given that he feels he can never deserve, but he is thankful that it was given nonetheless. He finds happiness even then, in Sansa's arms.

Gendry is so patient that it is Arya, after two years of waiting, who finally asks why Gendry  _hasn't_  asked, to which he responds he didn't think she wanted him to. He does ask then, and as much as Arya the girl thought she would never marry, Arya the woman says _yes_. Arya’s occasional disappearances wane in frequency and duration, shrinking from weeks to days, and she always comes back. One day, she takes Gendry with her, and then she never leaves without him again. Their happiness becomes part of Sansa's, her closeness with Arya, once an unsure thing, one of the surest over the years. Gaining Gendry as a brother is happiness to Jon. Although, he  _does_  tease Arya until Gendry begs him to stop for fear he'll end up standing alone before the heart tree. But Gendry is not alone on his wedding day, he is surrounded by his new family, and his bride makes him laugh when she walks toward him in fine breeches and a smile rather than a dress.

In time there are  _many_  Starks in Winterfell, auburn- and raven-haired children overtake the castle and fill it with the sounds of life. There are many arguments and fights between siblings, there is also much love. They run and ride and shriek and play, while also managing to dutifully attend their lessons. They all sew to varying degrees, Arya maliciously insisting even her nephews learn a basic stitch, and all learn to spar, another contribution by Arya, but one that Sansa does not object to, although she asks that the girls are taught how to wield a dagger rather than a sword. 

Often Sansa promises retribution if Arya is ever so blessed, a threat that makes Arya laugh nervously. Gendry just shrugs and says, "maybe someday" and Arya wonders at her good fortune, and finds she is grateful that Gendry is still so very patient. Gendry spends any time he is not helping to manage the land and castle endlessly thankful Arya finds something about him so admirable. He is happiest when his wife plops down in his lap for a kiss which she does often, and Arya laughs more than she ever has when he gives them, because she is happy, at last.

When Sam and Gilly bring their children for visits, Arya insists on escaping with Gendry on hunts because "there is such a thing as an overabundance of children in one castle," but Bran seems to enjoy it. While he sits amongst the mayhem, a small smile rises up on his face as if, in spite of all the remembering he does for the world, he is finally able to remember other things from years ago, memories of happy Stark children. Those memories give him pieces of himself he otherwise forgets, and he smiles. One day, his unexpected laughter becomes part of their happiness as well.

Sansa's happiness grows from being too much to bear to being quite bearable, her tolerance for it rising with every new occasion for joy. Happiness is the steady stride of her husband, his occasional outstretched hand for guidance, his rough laughter that comes frequently. His smile, that's almost always on his face, no worries removing it for long when he has so many small hands to hold and little faces to kiss. _That_ is happiness. 

The safety of her people, the safety of her husband, the safety of her children.  _Let theirs be the generation without war_  she prays, and that is another happiness, that what they have suffered and learned is what allows them to build, and they do build. They build a different world from the one before, after that nameless archer ends the dragon queen and her dragon, her remnants of armies are dispersed, resettled where possible. After the kingdoms have been broken up, after Kings and Queens and new Lords and Ladies have been recognized, Sansa discovers that happiness is burying bitterness and finding forgiveness.

All those who wronged her family are dead, their ghosts wander where they will, their home no longer with her. Tyrion has been stripped of land and titles, so she summons him to Winterfell. Stunned and broken as he is, he accepts. He has no say in politics, will never even participate in a serious conversation, instead he designs toys for her children, and makes for a very quiet drinking companion for Jon and Gendry. Among the enemies of his family he finds peace that he has never known before. 

The Stark children find their days filled with laughter and adventure and mischief, followed by admonishments from their mother, gentle reprimands from their father. They create copious reasons they need to sleep with their parents, and often Jon is buried beneath them all, only his good hand available to reach out and hold Sansa's. The clasp of her cool fingers telling him that  _this_  is happiness. 

Jon and Sansa's happiness is entwined with pain, the future so often sending them to the past, but that is the way of life. What moves us once never stops moving, it constantly hovers, waiting to descend. Yet, no darkness lasts forever, and nothing can eclipse the brilliance of their lives. Each day gives them more than the last as each day their wounds turn into scars and their scars become less and less troublesome, because even while scars never completely go away, they do begin to fade, in time.

Their happiness is love, given and received, year after year, in countless forms, in breath after breath, touch after touch. Sansa's happiness is Jon's, and hers his. Hers is not found in her crown, but in dark unseeing eyes that see her so well. His is found in red hair so bright, he thinks he can still see it burning. He hears his happiness in a voice that always sounds like a song to him, so he tells her, often, that life is a song after all, and theirs the sweetest one there is.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
